All Done

I think that Isabelle has learned the sign for all done—sort of. My sister pointed out when I was feeding her on Sunday evening that she was raising her hands to beside her head to signify that she was all done with the baby food. She hasn’t got the waving part down, but I’m sure that she’ll get that soon. Last night, she did it again. And then she pulled off her bib by herself—just in case I didn’t get it, I guess.

Gasoline Drama

We were on the hunt last night for gas—our car was on E and the gas supply in our city hasn’t been too good since Ike. We had tried to fill up on Tuesday, but none of the stations we went by had gas. We went by 30 stations and finally found a station—but we were stuck, and we had to have my parents pick up Isabelle. Zach went back to the station after dinned last night and waited for 2.5 hours in line. He ran out of gas in line, but a wonderful good Samaritan gave him a gallon to make it to the station. He was 2 cars away from getting gas—and the station ran out. I heard that station got some more last night, but I don’t know for sure. He made it home on fumes around 10pm (I was getting things ready to try to go get him in the bronco when he got home). This morning, we filled up the bronco and got 3 gallons of gas in cans for the car at a station uptown. I am so stressed over gas right now…I prayed the whole way uptown that we would find something that wouldn’t take too long—and it only took about 20 minutes! Praise God for the little things. Now if we can just find some gas for the car so we can drive the vehicle that has the better mileage…

Hunger Strike

Last night, Isabelle went on a hunger strike of sorts. It had been middle of the afternoon since she had last had anything to eat, so I knew she had to be hungry. But she wasn’t interested in the baby food I was trying to feed her. No to fruit and yogurt. No to carrots. No to anything on a spoon. And she kept trying to yank off her bib, which she has hated from the get-go. But wait, if she had the spoon, she would try to put it in her mouth. And then she would use the spoon as a drumstick. Messy, messy, but it got some food in her tummy. It’s even worse when you consider that we eat in the formal dining room because the kitchen table is in the office being used as a desk. But if I took one of those puffs that they make for babies now, and put some baby food on it and fed her with my fingers, she would take that. I can’t figure out if it’s because of her teeth (those top front teeth are coming in any day now), or if it is because she wants big people food, or if she just wants to try to feed herself. Or maybe she just hates that bib.

The end result: Isabelle got some food in her belly after much drama, and then a much needed bath. And even then she kept trying to climb out of the bathtub. Then we nursed, and she finally calmed down. I think I ate around 8pm, and it was really piecemeal.

Milk Woes

Note to reader: This post is about breastfeeding. If you are a person that is not comfortable about this subject, this post may be a case of TMI (too much information). You have been warned.

I have been blessed to be able to breastfeed Isabelle almost exclusively. For a little while early on, we were supplementing a couple of extra ounces of formula per day to help her gain weight, but we haven’t done that for several months now. Why has it been a blessing? Well, there are the obvious health benefits (I can proudly say that I weigh less than I did when I got pregnant, and she has had very few illnesses), it is hugely less expensive, and it is an amazing opportunity for me to be able to just spend time with my daughter. That is not to say that it hasn’t been a struggle. I have friends that have overproduced milk. I have not. I have, through some hard work, been able to freeze some milk, but I usually have just enough to satisfy Isabelle.

All of this changed this past weekend. We went on vacation for a few days, and I breastfed Isabelle and fed her baby food, as usual. She’s been slowly nursing less and less at each feeding, and this past weekend she actually nursed very little time at each sitting. Then I got sick with this random fever. All this contributed, I am guessing, to a massive slowdown in milk production. When I say massive, I mean that I am producing about half what I was producing last week! I am trying very hard not to freak out, to tell myself that we can work the supply back up—I’ve had other, smaller hiccups similar to this, but nothing on this scale. I am also telling myself that Isabelle is 9 months old, and Dr Holladay did say that she could do cow milk at 11 months at the earliest. If we have to go to formula, then it will only be a couple of months. I will hopefully still be able to give her some breastmilk, and any of that is better than none. Still, it feels like the end of an era. It will be a relief to have time back to myself (I spread my “lunch” break throughout the day at work to pump), but it meant a lot to me to be able to breastfeed Isabelle.