Baby Weight

Good News! Saoirse gained some weight over the weekend! Yay! I'm still confused on exactly how much since the nurse said one weight and the doctor said another. We'll just say she gained about 4oz. We go back on Friday to check her weight again.

Pic of the Day

The Ordeal

Finger feeding with the tube and syringe is a giant pain. Today we got pretty fed up with it. We kept making her barf which was heartbreaking. So we decided to switch to supplementing with bottles. I was trying to avoid it, but oh well. We ran out and got these crazy expensive weird new bottles to try. She seems to like being able to control the flow instead of basically having it shot directly into her mouth. duh.

Adiri Natural Nurser

Baby's First Bath

Saoirse's first bath was a silly affair. She had massively puked all over Mommy and herself after her noon feeding today so we decided she finally could use a wipe down. Mommy got her naked on a towel where she decided to puke all over herself again. Daddy brought a new towel and then she let a massive poo loose all over THAT towel. She seemed to be okay with the bath, probably still in shock somewhat from all the puking and pooing. Now she smells lovely and has fuzzier, lighter hair.

And now for something completely different...

Baby Update

We went back to the doctor's office today after seeing the pediatrician on Monday because of concern about Saoirse's poor feeding. We were worried and our fears confirmed when they weighed her and she hadn't gained any weight since they saw her the week before. So we've spent the week supplementing her with what we now realize was an insufficiently small amount of expressed breast milk with a syringe and felt confident that she was eating better at the breast as well. Unfortunately when she was weighed this morning, she had lost an ounce. Not anything to freak out about, but definitely a cause for concern. We don't want to give her artificial nipples at this point so we had to scramble around and find a better way to administer her supplement. The doctor tracked down a feeding tube with a larger syringe that we are now using that to "finger feed" her with a much larger amount of milk. I think we actually overdid it tonite because she totally barfed on us earlier. lol.

anyway, it's been a very stressful week, we've been incredibly worried. The thing that kept us from completely freaking out was that all our medical professionals told us that she looked great, and seemed very healthy despite the lack of weight gain. But i've never felt anything as frustrating as being the only source of nutrition for another being and not being able to work together well enough to get enough milk from me to her. I know we'll get better at it as time goes by, but it sucks right now. no pun intended. lol.

We are SO thankful that we have a great resource in our doula Sarah and midwife Suzanne. They not only made sure that we had an AMAZING home birth experience, but have been incredibly reassuring and helpful in the weeks since. They are pretty awesome ladies. :D Sarah has lent us a top of the line breast pump as well as a breastfeeding pillow, and several slings to try. Anytime we have a question or concern we call her and between her and Suzanne, they go out of their way to work with us. I can't sing their praises enough.

Baby is crying, time to go attempt to feed her again. Moo. :)

2 Weeks Old!

More Visitors!

Aunt Jenni

Cousin Sophia

Aunt Amy

Cousin Olivia

More Daddy & Saoirse

I'm a baby!

Happy One Week Birthday Saoirse!

9/18 Pics

w/ Grandpa Clayton

NOT Best Friends
(Lhamo & Saoirse)

9/15 Pics

Daddy & Saoirse

9/12 Pics

w/ Aunt Cyndie

w/ Grandma Becky

w/ Grandpa Tooley

First Doctor's Appt.

Just got back from taking Saoirse on her first outing! She did really well and didn't scream the entire time like I thought she might. lol. The nurses and doctor were pretty impressed at her mega newborn strength and wigglyness. She's small, but action packed! :D

We're heading out in a few minutes on a quest for a nursing bra so that should be exciting. I'm so tired, and I'm the only one not napping right now, lol.

What's funny is that the birth was WAY easier than I anticipated, but this part is harder. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that we actually have a baby now. And I'm totally hormonal which is not so fun on top of being exhausted. But we have lots of good help and that's what keeps me from totally freaking out.

Thanks for sending so much love our way people! :D

Saoirse Gets Weighed

Little One

Hello Baby!

Saoirse Royse Tooley
September 11, 2008
9:32 pm
6.7 lbs, 17 1/2 inches
Born @ Home in Water
Labor start to finish - 5 hours

Let's Do This!

The birthing tub is ready to go!

Yay!

Had an appt. with Suzanne and Sarah tonite. Dilated to 2cm, 80% effaced, 0 station! woo hoooo! Baby still in awesome position! Hope we have a baby by the end of the week!

Labor Please!

Spent all day yesterday cleaning (okay, mostly mark and his mom did the cleaning and i crankily hobbled around feeling useless), the home is now ready for a birth! Spent last nite from 1-4am sitting on the couch. I watched an infomercial about ice cream i think (or maybe that was a dream), and then somehow slept for 2 hours still sitting straight up. lol.

Please send me "labor vibes" people! All I can think about is having this baby, and each day is getting harder and harder to make it through without crying from frustration!

Baby Doctor

Today we finally picked a pediatrician for baby! I think we were procrastinating a little on this final decision. I never really got around to reading about vaccines so I wanted to make sure we went with someone who could be at least somewhat flexible with us on them if we were to later decide to not go along with the status quo vaccine schedule. It's not that we aren't going to do them at all, but we definitely want to feel like we have a choice.

Had another appt. at the OB's office today as well. Everything still looking good! Blood pressure is back to normal, the Nettles must have worked!

Happy 33rd Birthday Mooty

Soapbox

So normally I try to stay away from talking about my personal political and religious views since this isn't that kind of blog. But...since I'm about to have a baby, I feel like this is "kind of" on topic. lol.

Is anyone else freaked out by the fact that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has a five month old baby? It doesn't bother me that other candidates have school age children, but an infant? Seriously, being VP or even possibly stepping into the presidency with an infant (with special needs no less) to care for seems really weird to me.

Why is no one in the media talking about this? I could care less that her 17 year old daughter is knocked up! I'm tired of hearing about it frankly. What I want to to know is : what kind of attention this woman can possibly pay to both her job and her baby. Being Vice-President is kind of a big deal job it seems. Not the kind you can just "leave at the office" at 5pm. I can't imagine how much time away from a very needy little being it would require.

I'm starting to think that people might be afraid to bring it up lest they be labled "sexist." But it would be nice just to hear that maybe her husband is the main caregiver and she's just not "that kind of mom" or something. It's just weird for me that it doesn't even seem to be an issue.

Anyway, we've been watching both the Democratic and Republican conventions and I've got politics on the brain. Trying to distract myself from my seemingly (up untill today) endless pregnancy. lol. :D

I see the LIGHT!

I had just started to reach the point of "omg, I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER, I can't take this any longer" when lo and behold...I think something is happening ! I don't really want to go into details or anything, and I doubt we'll have a baby before next week at the least, but it makes me feel better to know I'm heading in that direction. Yay! :D

Baby Drop

Had a great appt. with Suzanne and Sarah today! It looks like the baby has dropped! Yay! And she's still in the perfect position! Yay! :D

My blood pressure was up a teeny bit on Friday at the Dr's office and also today, so Suzanne suggested taking Nettles (herbal supplement) which is supposed to help with that.

Other than that, not much else to tell. I'm trying some different things to help get us in a good place to start labor. I sit on the exercise ball alot, walk, drink alot of Pregnancy tea and Raspberry Leaf tea, and take Evening Primrose Oil. So I guess if nothing else gets this started, I can hold out some hope that the full moon will work it's magic on the 15th. lol.

Oh, and I've kinda switched over to the midwife's calender as far as how far along I am. We'll just say at this point that on Thurs. I'll be 39 weeks.