Friday, October 28, 2011

10.28.11

I don't want to jinx it but we've had a good couple of days.  And I only mean "a couple" in the truest sense of the word: at most, 2 days.  But...I feel like I'm getting to know Owen better and learning what makes him tick and learning his cries, his needs, his sounds and expressions...as well as learning my own ways and how they help and hinder me when he's having a tough time.  I also am amazed at what a little sleep can do - even if it's only in 2 1/2 hour spurts, but if I chain three or four of those spurts together it makes me a whole lot saner.  Owen seems to be settling into a bit of a night time pattern too, (well, do two or three nights make a pattern?) so that's been helpful for me since I'm so neurotic about predictability and patterns and routines.

I cut cow's milk dairy out of my diet and he's been so much less gassy/burpy/farty/agonizing/screaming that I really do think it makes a difference.  I *hope* it makes a difference - it would be really nice to have a concrete idea of "this helps" rather than just trying everything at random.  His rash/acne/eczema has also started to clear since I cut the dairy out as well, so I think he really may be sensitive to it.

Yesterday I went for my 6 week postpartum visit (still a bit early, I'm only 5 1/2 weeks pp) and the doctor gave me a clean bill of health - my incision has healed well, yadda yadda.  When we were leaving the building, there was a truck parked outside the office that said OTIS along the side of it and I swear their logo looked SO MUCH like a dandelion.  It made me smile, big.

In other news, my bff (or one of them) told me yesterday that her husband has a tumor in his jaw.  He had testicular cancer about 8 years ago so we are all really hoping and praying that this is not a recurrence.  He goes for a biopsy next week, please keep your fingers crossed.  It also helps to explain why she's been pretty absent from helping with Owen this month, as they've been caught in CT scans and MRIs and a whole lot of scariness. I'm really ready to have a few months in a row where I stop shaking my fists at the heavens and shouting about how crappy life can be sometimes, by the way.

I have to start making plans to go back to work.  I can't believe it.  I so wish we could swing it otherwise but it's just not in our cards.  It looks like the week before Thanksgiving will be my first week back (very part time) and we'll take it from there (the kids all have the week of Thanksgiving off, so that week I will be home as well).  I don't know how it's going to work but I have to have some faith that it will somehow.

OK, baby is calling.  Thanks for all the love and support.  I really am around and reading your blogs and I apologize for not commenting, it's just hard to type a comment on my phone with one hand.

9 comments:

æ said...

Hey love. You're doing great. And work--tricky as it is to juggle--is often a sanity-saver.

I'm so sorry to hear about T.

Anonymous said...

Keep on keeping on mamma. Love that you saw that truck. And for what it's worth two of my three living kids could not tolerate dairy at all. I cut it out 100% for a year. Totally worked. Beware hidden milk... in the form of whey and cassein.
xo

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing your story. Take care.

Hope's Mama said...

Day by day. You're doing a wonderful job.
xo

Merry said...

One of mine was rubbish with cows milk; I wish I had known to cut it out because she got terrible eczema but we only worked it out when she was about 3. Looking back, she was so obviously miserable if I ate it and refused formula made from cows milk when I tried to wean her.

Renel said...

Whoop! You're getting the hang of this thing! You know the first couple months babies need to learn how to be alive outside the hot tub. So maybe Owen is getting the hang of it too...good for you.

Anonymous said...

love you sarah. x

fia said...

sarah, i love you. thinking of you so much. i'm so relieved to hear there've been a couple good days - here's to a couple more!

Joanna said...

Sarah, I am a former yoga student of yours from Ironworks. We were pregnant at the same time, although you were about 4 weeks ahead of me. In the end, Otis was late, and my daughter Arden was 5 weeks early. She was born on September 12, 2010. Almost from the day we came home I was wondering about you, how you were doing, when your baby was born... when I finally made it back to the gym and found out you had lost Otis, I was devastated. Since then I have thought about you and about Otis - I won't say daily, but definitely weekly. When I was up with Arden in the middle of the night, when she wouldn't stop screaming, when she spit up all over my work clothes when I was already running late, when my nipples bled, I thought of you and your pain and your loss and was humbled at how lucky I was.
As my favorite yoga instructor and a pillar of the balance and sanity I was able to find, you were an important figure in my life, but I know from your perspective I was one student of many. Although I wondered often how you were doing, I felt presumptive in following your story or getting in touch, and I felt ashamed in way way that I had a baby and you did not. But I see and respect your request that folks let you know when they are reading this blog, so that's what I'm doing.
As the mom of a premature baby I want to acknowledge how incredibly hard the first few months are and how interminable. I know right now for you a day sounds like an eternity, and the idea that this might go on for weeks or months is unbearable. It is really hard. Especially because each milestone is that much farther away - the first smile comes not at 6 weeks but at 11 weeks... which is a lot longer to wait for some, any, sign of recognition. But then each day the fussiness abates a tiny fraction, the sleep gets infinitesimally more regular, the exhaustion ebbs. Slowly, slowly, painfully slowly, but it does. It really does. Arden is (as you probably already know) 14 months on Saturday and, while things are not easy, it's a completely different universe than the first few months. You and Owen will make it here. You will.
I am overjoyed to learn of Owen's arrival. I will continue to hold you and your family in my heart.