Returning back to work

Going back to work hasn't been nearly as hard as it was with Olivia. I will admit that I was actually a little excited to start work. It has been nice to actually accomplish something without being interrupted. I love love my family and I would be a SAHM in a heartbeat but being at home with both kids and Mike was challenging to say the least. I am a schedule and task oriented person and Mike is a lot more laid back so I can get frustrated very easily.

It's tough being a working mom but I have to keep to my baby steps or I would go crazy. It was one thing to keep a house when Olivia was a baby because she was at the sitter's and Mike was at school all day then we would all come home. I could clean at night and come home to a clean house. Now Mike, Olivia and Hazel are at home all day and I rarely come home to a clean house. I wish my house could be clean but I have come to settle to having the kitchen clean every night. Not necessarily up to my standards but as long as I can get the dishwasher loaded and the counters and stovetop wiped down, I call it good. The family room is another story....

Olivia versus Hazel

I remember when we had Olivia and every check up we went too the doctor would ask how she was doing and I would say " Really good. She never cries." And he would say "Things will change and it will start to pick up.". It never did. Olivia rarely cried. I can count on two hands the number of times she cried before the age of 1. When we told other people, they said oh we got really lucky because that isn't normal. Every book I read and tried the technique work beautifully. Only took a few days to implement. Olivia is easy going, adapts to change very well, is a good eater and good sleeper and a pretty good listener (for her age at least).

Then along came Hazel. The pregnancy and postpartum recovery were totally different. Hazel cries. A lot more than Olivia. When she is hungry she is hungry right now. She can't stand a poopy diaper. When she was a newborn she wanted to be held always. It was a big adjustments and I now realize how easy of a baby Olivia was. Hazel isn't terrible by any means. I am told she is quite normal and actually a very good baby.

I kind of feel like a new mom again because I have had to try new techniques and reread some books I wasn't planning on rereading. I knew having two kids would be a big adjustment but wow it is hard work. Sometimes I feel bad because Olivia use to get all our attention and now she has to share. And then Hazel will never get as much attention as Olivia ever did. Then if we have another baby Hazel will definitely get the short stick when it comes to attention. I guess that is where middle child syndrome starts to form. J/k.

All in all everything is going well. I forgot how exhausting the first couple of months were but Hazel is finally starting to sleep a little bit longer. I will take waking up at 4:30 over 2. Hazel was a little high maintenance the first few weeks but she has become much easier. We finally have Olivia potty trained and it was a lot easier than I suspected. It is hard work but worth it. I am glad that Olivia will have a playmate. Will we have more kids? We would love to but Mike says we should take a little break. I totally agree. I am looking forward to forgetting the hard parts of pregnancy, labor, and the first few months.

Beachbody

I really love Beachbody workout videos. I tried Insanity last summer and I did it for about 1 month and I got in awesome shape. I don't know if I lost a ton of weight but in terms of doing aerobic and anaerobic activity, I totally could kick butt. Mike really wanted me to do P90X with him so we started that instead. ;( Mike wasn't a big fan of Shaun T so he wouldn't do Insanity plus it reminded him of football practices in high school. So we did P90X and what usually ends up happening is we plan to do the workouts in the morning and that goes well for about 2 days. Mike isn't a morning person so it is hard for him to wake up let alone wake up to work out right away. So I would work out in the morning and he would work out later that day. The program is awesome and I fully believe that if I stuck with it I could get awesome results. The problem is I think Tony Horton is so annoying. Mike would mute the program when he would work out. My other problem was it was too repetitive. It has variety but after a month it can be brutal.

Then I discovered Chalene Johnson who does ChaLEAN Extreme and TurboFire. I follow her on twitter and like her Facebook page. She is a motivational speaker as well. She also got me interested in the Bodybugg. I really like her. I have also done some ChaLEAN Extreme Workouts and they are awesome so I decided to ordered her TurboFire workout videos last fall before I found out I was pregnant. I love both of the workouts but I think the instructor makes a huge difference.

Now that I am 10 weeks postpartum I decided to workout and try to lose some weight. Well atleast get back to my prepregnancy weight because none of my clothes fit. Even though I may weigh the same my hips are definitely a lot wider than last time. With Olivia, I didn't really worry about exercising until she was 10 months and the only reason I started working out was because I started packing on the pounds after I stopped pumping. This time I am going to get a head start and my goal is to be at my prepregnancy weight by Thanksgiving time. I think it is doable. I am 10lbs away. I really can't diet but I can eat healthy but most of the weight loss will be from exercising.

I started doing TurboFire and I love it. The music is awesome, the workouts are intense and fun. There is a ton of choreography to learn so I still look uncoordinated and I haven't started the real schedule because it is way above my aerobic level. I am doing the modified schedule to help me get in shape to do TurboFire. That is how intense TurboFire is. TurboFire is straight cardio and I am always dripping in sweat after each workout. Some ladies post that they burn 600+ calories after a turbofire workout.

I use to workout at the gym. I loved my gym in Logan. I could easily spend 90 minutes doing cardio and lifting then tack on another 30 to swim or sit in the sauna. Then I had a baby and work got busy. And then we had another baby. While I would love to go to the gym it is easier to work out at home now. I can do it whenever and I don't have to find a sitter. Plus it saves us money.

And I probably seem obsessive with losing weight but really I love to exercise. I love to get the endorphin high after a workout. I hate being limited in my activities because I am too tired, too overweight or not strong enough to do it. Plus it helps my self-esteem even though I never really get super skinny or lose weight. I usually never have the time or will power to follow the eating plan. Plus I turned 30 this year and I know the metabolism slows down significantly. My goal is to be in the best health during my 30s. I am smarter and wiser so hopefully I can make better decisions.

Placental Encapsulation

After I had Hazel I got my placenta encapsulated. While I was pregnant, I was preparing myself to get post partum depression and accept the fact that I would probably have to take an antidepressant again. Even though I took one for 4 months with Olivia, I felt super guilty about it. Then I found out about placental encapsulation and I did some research and found someone in Boise that provided the service.

My personal experience has been I haven't had any post partum depression and I didn't experience any baby blues. Every time I did take my pills, I would get a huge surge of energy which is abnormal for me especially during the first few weeks the baby is home. It also help with the lochia going away faster.

I did stop taking them early because I wasn't sure if it was making my pregnancy rash worse. It wasn't. The pregnancy rash consumed the last two weeks of my pregnancy and it came back post partum and it has gone away and come back two more times. And I suspect that it will come back a few more times until I can detox my liver and get my hormones back to a normal level which means even after I am done pumping.

The lady who provided the service was very professional. She was quiet and respectful and I didn't even notice she was there. She was quick and clean and I never worried about ingesting the pills. If and when Mike and I decide to have more kids, I would definitely do it again and would highly recommend it to any mom.

Potty Training success

We started the potty training process last Wednesday and Olivia had done really well. Olivia does have her occasional accidents but for the most part she remembers to pee and poop by herself. Honestly she was probably ready a long time ago but I just wasn't ready to tackle the challenge while I was pregnant.

I still put a diaper on her at night but she woke up dry on a couple of occasions. Mike and I are more comfortable with getting the day training done for atleast 2-3 weeks before we try to tackle night training.

On a side note we have been cloth diapering Hazel. We didn't get to do it with Olivia because she was in her body harness for the first 3 months and I didn't want to risk getting it dirty with poop or pee. Also Mike wasn't too big into it either. I have actually enjoyed cloth diaper and we haven't had a blow out since we started. Even with the Huggies, Hazel was still having blow outs. Our hope is we can keep up with the cloth diapering and we will be able to potty train Hazel a lot earlier than we did with Olivia. We still use a disposable at night because it can hold so much urine especially when she starts sleeping 12 hours a night. We could use cloth but it would be a huge gigantic diaper.

Curly Q

When I was pregnant my hair started getting wavy and I was expecting it to go back. Now that I am 9 weeks post partum, my hair is wavier than it was when I was pregnant and it seems to be getting wavier as more weeks go by. Wavy hair is beautiful but I grew up with stick straight hair and honestly I finally grew into that and found haircuts that worked great and learned how to style it and what product to use in during my late 20s. Now I am back to square one and I am pretty upset about it because I don't have the time or patience to relearn but I guess I don't have a choice. My hope is it is as wavy in the back as it is in the front.

I still love my flat iron but I recently invested in a curling iron and velcro rollers and will see how things go from there. My hair is super thick still but I expect that to change in the next few months. And my S-I-L who is a hair dresser informed me that with each subsequent child my hair will probably get curlier and curlier.

If anyone has any recommendations on hair product or styling tips for wavy hair, I would love to hear them.

Brain power. What brain power?

I had really bad pregnancy brain with Olivia. I read about it but I thought to myself "Really? Is that even possible?" And I learned that it is a serious side effect of pregnancy. Then I had Olivia and I slowly but surely regained all my brain power and going back to work definitely helped me get back to where I was. Then I got pregnant with Hazel but I was more prepared so it didn't seem so bad. I made lists and tried not to rely on my memory alone. Then I had Hazel and was ready to be my old self. I read that BF can be a brain sucker as well but I didn't experience this with Olivia but I am having a brain drain with Hazel. I am a lot dumber than I was when I was pregnant. Somedays I think "Can I get any dumber?" I am scared to find out.

My new best friend - My Medela Pump

When Hazel was born she was a natural latcher and breast feeding was so so much easier than it was with Olivia. I was so happy. But we ran into a few problems. She was having a problem gaining back to her birth weight. The doctor didn't seemed concerned but I was. Then I went to a breastfeeding support group at the hospital and that is when I realized that even though Hazel was a good latcher she was a lazy nurser. She just didn't suck hard enough to get all the milk. Plus I didn't have the patience to spend 1-1.5 hours nursing and burping. She was a spit-uppy baby.

Then I started to worry about her weight gain and my milk supply. So I started pumping between week 3-4. I was worried because I wasn't producing much milk yet. I started taking fenugreek and blessed thistle to increase my supply. It worked really well with Olivia. Bad news was Hazel was super sensitive and it made her gassy and super fussy. I got a prescription for Reglan but I started drinking Mother's Milk tea because my doula said the amount of fenugreek and blessed thistle were a lot less. I tried the tea with Olivia but I hated the taste. It has a black licorice flavor but since I feel so strongly about breastmilk the first few weeks/months I started drinking it and it helped a ton.

Since I exclusively pumped with Olivia, I knew what I was getting in to and I had a lot of mixed feelings. I wanted to give Hazel the benefits of BM but I didn't want to be tied down to the breast pump like I was before. I was pumping 8-10 times to build my supply. Luckily with technology and the iPhone I found the "What to Expect When Expecting" Ap and there was a group of ladies who were exclusively pumping and I learned a lot of new tips that has made it bearable. Almost everyday since I started pumping I considered quitting atleast once and it was probably because of my dumb pregnancy rash but things are going much better.

Things I learned from the Exclusively Pumping forum are: Pumping Pals are flanges that curve so it isn't painful to pump especially when I have to do it multiple times a day. And it has a hands free sling that I use every time I pump. I don't have to pump 8 times a day for the rest of the year. I have actually cut it down to 4 times a day. I have to spend a little bit more time pumping but atleast I have more freedom from the house and engorgement.

The bad things I have experienced this time is mastitis and I think I might have thrush. I don't have the classic signs but I am going to ask the doctor about it tomorrow.

Overall I have learned that the first six weeks of BF are rough. There are a lot of problems that moms can run into. Even though Hazel was a good latcher and I never had sore nipples, I didn't expect her to be a weak nurser. I do realize I could have nursed and pumped and supplemented and she could have outgrown the problem. She won't nurse now. The bottle is way to convenient for her. Burping a newborn can be a long process and based on Hazel and Olivia I have babies that spit up quite a bit. There are awesome lactation consultant services in Boise and BF support groups here and honestly if I wasn't coming back to work and planning to pump anyway I probably would have stuck with it. On a side note we did buy a new upright freezer to store my milk supply which is so nice because our freezer was packed so full it was a pain in the butt to get anything out.

Back to work means back to blogging

I am back to work atleast part time for the next couple of weeks then I will be working full time. Hopefully this means I will start blogging regularly because I will have some type of routine that involves me sitting at a computer.

I loved reading about everyone's happenings over the summer so thank you to those who still post. I spend a lot of time pumping so I need something to keep me entertained. There have been many times that I would like to comment but the RSS feeder app on my phone doesn't give me that option.