6 Month Update!

And here come the holidays....

Legan update!

Weight: 19 lbs 

Length: 26.75"

Head: 18.75"

Percentiles: 91%, 83%, and 100+% in that order.

New Skills: Rolling from back to front, taking his socks off, turning around in circles on the floor (whether on his belly or back), and moving toys from one hand to another. GRABBING EVERYTHING and eating it.

Likes: Chewing on anything he can, tasting new foods, stroller rides, showertime, and hanging out with people more than anything.

Dislikes: Being home with just mom, being on his side for PT, getting his eye boogers cleaned out.

Tummy problems: Still definitely on the Zantac, but we seem to be increasing it slower. Still kinda pukey most mornings, but I think it's from swallowing too much saliva overnight.

Eating progress: We have had some tastes of some real people food. We're planning on mostly skipping purees/baby food of all sorts - just not worth it plus I have no reason to want to force feed him. So we're offering tastes of adult food that is appropriate. So far he's had: plain sweet potato, smidgens of corn cassarole (missing the kernels), tiny apple chunks, veggie pasta, split pea soup, tomato, one tiny piece of pickle (it was worth his face!), scrambled eggs, and little bits of orange minus the fiber. He really liked the sweet potato, tomato, and pea soup - everything else he makes funny faces at.

Sleeping: Goes back and forth. We'll have a week of OK - up only once or twice in 12 hours overnight, with maybe 1 75 minute nap, and 2 short ones. Then we have a week or two of terrible - up 4-5 times overnight (every 1-3 hours) with 4 or 5 15-25 minute naps during the day. There's not much I can do about it, other than cry. On the bad days he gets totally overtired and can't sleep and won't let me put him down either...

Clothing sizes: some 6 month, but mostly 9 month and some 12s.

Other new updates: Impatiently waiting for his teeth to come in and stop bugging him!.

 Mommy Update!

STILL waiting on my insurance card. SO FRUSTRATED with the State of Illinois, but totally not willing to spend hours on hold on their phone system. So irked. So pretty much nothing has changed. I still hurt. I've got back to my workout routine - I'll write it out below - and try to take maybe 2-3 walks a week, but it all hurts. I also don't take walks with baby when it's raining out and it's been raining for just over a week now....

Physical stuff: Still suffering irritated skin around the incision, deeper scar tissue pain there, plus looseness at my pelvic juncture that causes pain anytime my knees aren't lined up next to each other.

Workout routine, in this order:

Group 1:

1 set of 20 squats, over baby
1 set of 6 pushups, over baby
1 set of 20 toe touches, over baby
1 set of 2 (each side) windmills, over baby

short break

Group 2: 

1 set of 20 squats, over baby
1 set of 6 pushups, over baby
1 set of 12 arm curls, using baby as weight
1 set of 12 shoulder presses, using baby as weight

short break

Repeat Group 1

short break

Repeat Group 2

DONE!

Emotionally: Pretty much nothing has changed on this front. I did get up on my horse about 2 weeks ago and it was a great time. Then I physically paid for it with pretty intense pelvic pain for a few days. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Best damn turkey hat anywhere!

Examining his seating arrangements.

Wondering where the heck his plate of dinner is.

Modeling his other hat and contemplating his fish toy.

Mom & baby - eating his bib.

And diving away!

Other fun pictures from the recent past:

Eating his favorite taggy at a restaurant

Gotta hand onto me while eating

Ninja baby!

I love when he has to stop to contemplate his hands/fingers

He thought the basket on him was hilarious.

The face plus the outfit was too much to ignore.

I got him to take a pacifier for another 5 minutes on day, and he gave me this look...

This is what I wake up to most days.

Modeling 6 month clothes that won't fit long!

I love babies in hoodies!

Learning how to tie him up...er...wear him with a woven wrap.

Passed out on the couch when festivities are too much.

Adorable chunks in the tub.

He does love to nap in his wraps...

Happy guy in awesome clothes.

What a lovely dog - he belongs to my brother-in-law and is SO patient.

This is in a women's restroom at a Minneapolis theater....

Close up of the sign...

The first time he successfully got the teether in his mouth by himself!

Love his star foot!

He's an early reader...or...book eater I suppose.

Loves his hat!

Waiting patiently for lunch!

Eating my hair...

Insisting on standing up to pay with his baby gym.

And here's a quick preview of our Christmas shots!!!

Mom and baby, and he just LOVES to eat his hands.

Sitting up by himself and he's the BEST. GIFT. EVER.

Toes...loves those toes.

Look ma, I ALMOST fell over!

Plus a couple of cute videos!

Legan laughing for mommy!

Legan as a lumberjack dealing with Mr. Barley's antics!

Legan having a ball at his 6 month checkup, playing with the exam paper!

Where's the Exercise Blog Or, The Mom I Thought I'd Be

I originally started this blog for two reasons: I was freshly alone in a new state, so it was nice to get things off my chest, and I was wanting a way to talk about and broadcast my exercise plans and ideas. I wanted to also work on talking about ideas for eating and being healthy in all different aspects. Obviously I knew pregnancy would be featured, as soon as I found out I was pregnant, but I then planned on using it to follow exercise and healthy plans through pregnancy and new motherhood. 

It morphed to involve more of my life and emotional health than I had planned, but then my life was turned upside down a few times and emotional health moved to the front burner. On top of that, I'm in a place where I'm unable to really be exercising much currently. 

So this blog just isn't really the blog I had wanted/intended it to be. I'm still posting about how I'm trying to find my balance of life/food/motherhood/exercise, but it's just not in the way I wanted it to be. 

At the same time, I'm not the mom I thought I'd be.

Good times as a couch mom, he loves to look at himself in the camera screen.

When we decided to chance pregnancy, we were a little up in the air, but we really thought we were in a decent place. We thought we both had new jobs in a wonderful family business where I could do some bookkeeping work from home plus come in somedays to help out with the physical work, my husband could work the shop during the days, and we could be an active together family living just a few minutes from work. 

I had planned on keeping my horse because with both of us working we could afford to do so, and I could lease her out some with my connections there, use her as a lesson horse parts of each week in order to support her costs. I could ride once a week in the evening after my husband got home still.

I did totally expect to sleep with my munchkin.

I had intended to keep up with yoga all through the postpartum period, even gently, and gradually ramp it back up a few weeks later. I thought I would take up running again, even for just very short distances, within 2 months of birth. I meant to attend some prenatal and then mommy & me yoga classes afterward to help keep me involved with other moms. 

I wanted to spend some days at the free pool in our complex, and some days at the free beach in our county - in the Gulf of Mexico.

I should have been able to do some rock climbing again, starting off very gradually after birth of course. I figured we could bring baby in the carrier and just pass him back and forth so we could both do some climbing. 

Someone found this thumb by itself finally!

He found it again, and the shirt says it all.

Instead, here we are about 5 months out....

I'm physically still in pain everyday. 

Running still isn't something I can even think of starting at.

Likewise with yoga. There are only about 5-6 poses I can do that don't cause any pelvic pain/instability.

We can't afford to keep my horse. On top of that, even though she's not sold yet I still can't ride. I haven't really ridden since April. It separates my pelvis.

Rock climbing is also a no-go for the same reason.

Swimming I could probably do, or at least hanging out in the water with baby. But it's not free here, it's very expensive, even more so when it's chilly out, so it's outside of my possibilities.

I might have been able to manage a super light easy mommy & me yoga class - but again with the lack of funds to do it. 

So I hoped to at least be the mom that was out walking around all the time - either wearing or with the stroller. But I can really only manage that with the stroller and not too long of a walk - or not more often than every two or three days.

He's so sweet all cuddled into this cradle. Nevermind those boxes of our stuff that's all being stored...

So instead, I am a sit inside and be bored and sometimes spend all day with the TV mom. Because doing other things has become too painful or expensive for me. 

I LOVE spending time with my little guy, and I WANT to do more WITH him even, but I don't know how to find things to entertain us that don't involve too much time on my feet or any money. I'm at a bit of a loss. 

On top of it, if I ever have another pregnancy, I'm high risk in two different ways. I've had a preemie for unexplained and therefore unpreventable reasons, and I would be a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Those two reasons added together make me ineligible for any out-of-hospital birth center in pretty much any state (with the possible except of The Farm in Tennessee). I would likely get turned down by a home birth midwife, if I wanted to go that route, due to risk. But if I did find a midwife who would do it (and thanks to Illinois, she'd probably be an underground midwife), insurance can't pay her, and there's no way my husband would agree to paying for a home birth when we could have insurance pay for a hospital birth. 

For the moments when I'm overwhelmed with everything...at least I have pretty cocktails?

So pretty much even if I manage to get over my fears and attempt another pregnancy - I'll not be able to have the birth that I wanted. Also, in Illinois it's not legal to have even an in hospital water birth if you're a VBAC. So I'd be stuck either intentionally at home with no medical assistant (LOL NOPE NOT HAPPENING HERE!) or in a very highly medicalized hospital birth. Continuous monitoring, IV, in a nasty ass hospital gown, stuck to the bed essentially with no hope of eating/drinking/relaxing or delivering in a position I want. I just have to give up on anything I was ever hoping for for birth. Even if everything goes 100% perfectly, I'll be treated as a high risk pain in the ass who can't make decisions for herself. 

He's so proud of himself, check out his "big boy" duds!

I tried to get a cute smiley picture, but his hands were impossible to remove from his face.

So I'm grieving. Grieving for the loss of my birth and future births. Grieving for the mom I can't be and the person that I can't be and the life I don't know how to live anymore. Becoming a mom isn't easy, but doing so at the same time as losing your ability to do the overwhelming majority of your hobbies at the same time makes everything much harder. Now having a baby doesn't make it easy to do my hobbies, but Legan merely existing doesn't make it impossible. I could find the time and/or childcare or other support systems to manage to do at least some running, riding, yoga, or climbing if he was the only obstacle - but he's the smallest one. My body holds me back from the largest chunk of what it means to be me. Finances definitely hold back a small part, but not nearly as much as my body.

I worry even more that as we move forward into colder temps that if I don't start getting in some real cardio now - I won't have the lung capacity and cold tolerance to do any outside over the winter. And cardio inside is next to impossible to do for free. So here I am, hoping for the best, but worried. I lost most of what it means to be me with my difficult end of pregnancy and delivery. I lost out on ever having a birth I want when I went into labor with a breech baby in this state at 35 weeks. I lost out on being an athletic mom so far, and I've lost pretty much all of my hobbies other than writing. 

When you strap up a cranky baby that refuses to sleep so you can play a board game!

So all I can hope is that sometime soon I get my insurance card, and then work up the nerve to ask a third medical provider to help me with my pain rather than blow me off. 

I'm working on trying very hard to get out of all of these bad places in my head, but I really don't know how to without being able to drag my body into at least an OK pain free place - preferably one that allows me to practice some of my physical hobbies. We'll see I suppose.

Best damn overalls ever!

I think this look is busy emulating his chubby fluffy bunny next to him. 

Also, I have really funky looking irises. They're green with a brown ring around the pupil. 

And just for giggles, here's a short video of our walk the other day, Barley leads on fearlessly!

Can I Make My Kid Trans?

***Disclaimer: I intend this post as just a dumb humor statement. I do not think that the actions of parents will change the sexuality or gender identity of their kids.***

I don't know what I like more - his hat, his Columbia jacket, or his Nikes...he's so well dressed!

So I had a long term relationship with a woman. 5 years to be exact. My husband knows this, most of his family knows this, my family knows this. Suffice to say that if any of my kids (I can dream that one day I'll have another one, right?) belongs to the LGBTQA... community that I'll be very comfortable and happy for them. Actually, as long as he or she is a good Ally, then it's all good with me. My current worry is whether my hopes and dreams can mess with his future gender identity. I mean, he's only 5 months old, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. He hasn't even discovered his penis yet (edit! two days after writing this but a couple of weeks before publishing it he found his penis during a diaper change.)

You see, we didn't find out the sex of the baby until the delivery room. That whole shit-show is the stuff of a blog post but I found out it was a boy in that moment. I am the daughter of a single mother, I have one sister, and my mom has 3 sisters. Her sister has 3 girls. I have spent my whole adult life dreaming of building a relationship with my daughter like I have with my mom. And now, I have a boy. 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this little guy, from the top of his huge mostly bald - except for his back of the head "soul patch" - head to the tip of his tiny little chunky sausage toes. I don't think there's a thing wrong with him, and I wouldn't change him for the world. He's still a boy. And after my terrible surgical experience bringing him into this world, plus still feeling physically broken 5 months later, I'm not sure I'll ever have another baby. So in the meantime I keep daydreaming, and night-dreaming about my wonderful daughter. So while I don't think it's actually possible to give my son a gender discrepancy issue, here's why I worry that I might at least give him a complex!

1. I literally sometimes call him my little girl. This is NOT on purpose. I wonder why I'm so messed up? Seriously?! He's my adorable sweet loving boy, get it together woman.

2. I have zero problem with my person of any sex expressing any gender they choose. I'm not a girly girl and never have been, but I also don't believe in the uber macho persona of some men. In fact, if he wanted to wear dresses and be a pretty princess I'd celebrate.

3. I have no idea how to relate to a male child. I'm willing to learn, but obviously I'm just under-experienced here. I shudder when I think of potty training, I mean, I haven't been able to teach his father to get all the urine into the bowl and to put the seat down. How am I supposed to manage that with an opinionated toddler?

4. My son already seems to be ridiculously smart for his age. Of course, at 5 months old he's not able to articulate that to me, but he's adapted several different cries to express his feelings. He's already smart enough to know that if mom's in the house he doesn't HAVE to take a bottle - he knows there are boobs around to eat from. What's to say he won't be super perceptive and realize that I'm wishing for a daughter by the time he knows that he certainly isn't one?

5. At the height of my sleep deprived 4th trimester, when I'd not had a solid 2 hours of sleep in weeks, and when he managed to pee on me (and the wall/floor/clothes/new diaper/everyFREAKINGthingwithin5feet) for each diaper change in the last 12 hours I found myself not only crying but also exasperatingly asking him WHY he had to have a PENIS anyway. You see, it's not that I mind that he's a mini-man, it's that he has this high pressure fire hose that he uses to douse everything within reach!

Don't get me wrong, I love my son, and I am excited to be able to raise a white man in this country to be sensitive to race/class/sex/all minority groups. I can keep hoping that maybe one day I will have a wonderful daughter IN ADDITION to my son. Either way he'll be a wonderful guy to watch grow up. Unless of course he chooses to be my daughter himself, in which case I'll love him just the same. The most important part to me right now is to be sure I don't make him feel inadequate or wrong for the body he was born with, and that he can grow up to be any sort of person he wants to be - sparkly dresses, combat boots, ballet, football or any/all/none of the above.


And...fun pictures from recent times.

Barley holding Legan down while I get the stroller out of the trunk

This is my view from Legan while I'm walking. He doesn't look impressed!

Lovin those overalls

Why Barley puts up with this..I have no idea.

The single least attractive photo of this little guy!

5 Month Update!

HOORAY FOR HALLOWEEN!

It's my favorite big holiday and it was JUST before little man turned 5 months old.

Legan update!

Weight:  17lbs  8oz

Length: 27"

Head: 18"

Percentiles: 87%, 100+%, and 100+% in that order.

New Skills: Actually sucking on just his thumb, playing in his exersaucer, doing half sit-ups, purposely grabbing toys with both hands, and he found his penis....sigh.

Likes: Funny faces, bath/showertime, having EVERYTHING in his mouth all the time, sleeping in a little nest, and taking walks.

Dislikes: People NOT making a big deal out of him, boogers in his nose, and when he pokes himself in the eyeballs.

Tummy problems: We've had to up his Zantac dose twice in the last month, but we're doing pretty well again.

Sleeping: pretty well. Gradually changing over to just 3 naps during the day, most of which are a decent length (1+ hour), and spending at least 10-12 hours in bed at night usually only eating 1-2 times in there. Sometimes 3 of course, if he had a rough night.

Other new updates: he had his first cold just before Halloween and other than it 

This was actually a happy face...it's just LOOKS like he's ordering around his hench-demons...

Mommy Update!

I've really backed off from my exercise routine, after I kept up with it for about a month, I was more sore and sore all of the time. I worked a few shifts in there and being on my feet that long caused me some pain issues. I even took about 2 weeks off walks, and that seemed to help. I started them back up, and so far it's OK as long as I am not wearing my little man.

I'm still waiting on my insurance card to see if there's any chance of seeing a physical therapist for this. Most of hat I find online is tons of references to therapy to help with incontinence or pain from tears in vaginal deliveries. So I don't know, we'll see.

Physical stuff: Pretty much nothing has changed, most things I try to do, even rolling out of bed and putting my pants on while standing up causes some pain. Doesn't help that the skin within about 5" of the incision feels raw and chafed in pretty much every pair of pants I own. Most of the pants I have are still too small, but the very few pairs of maternity PANTS (rather than capris or shorts) I have are too big. Huge pajama pants or sweatpants is all I can wear without discomfort. Even my favorite yoga pants hurt me - but I refuse to only leave the house in pjs. Hoping that in the coming month I can start figuring out something. I don't really have much trust for any doctors anymore, and I've already had 2 blow me off about this situation, so I'm obviously having a hard time finding the motivation to call yet another person about this. It's painful to even consider that another doctor could blow me off and I could feel even more ignored/belittled by the medical system this year. It was a team of OBs that put me into this situation, so seeing more OBs doesn't appeal to me. But I will, I'll try. I just worry that physical therapy will be outside my financial ability - to say nothing of trying to find time to go without Legan regularly. I have also seen support belts that supposedly help, but they rely on your pregnant belly to keep them in place - so that's not likely to help me much. Crossing my fingers that I can find something to help me though.

And I feel like I got even more gypped. I'm still nursing my little man like 8-12 times a day. He's taken less than 10 bottles since coming from the hospital, and just before he was 5 months old I got my period back. NOT fair at all. Who wants to deal with fertility at this point in the game? I certainly don't!

Still just not loving this...especially when I still feel weak & pathetic.

Emotionally: Well, as pretty much all of my physical hobbies have been cut out, I'm having a rough time. One of the best ways to combat depression and anxiety is to get enough exercise, and I honestly don't know how without spending money that we don't have on a gym membership so that I can swim. My sit down type hobbies just aren't keeping me entertained enough. It's too easy to stop reading or coloring to clean the house. And everything I do I pretty much have to contain to 10 minutes at a time, or Legan starts fussing. His naps are only about 30 min during the day typically, so I mostly have to use that time to use the bathroom, wash/fold diapers, and eat. I'm seeing my therapist weekly, but in the grand scheme, I have no idea how things are going to start looking up as long as my status quo is unchanged. Legan has become pretty much the only joy in my life - so on his rough/cranky days I pretty much don't have any. We're alone for 12 hours and while I'd be happy to go out on a 3 hour walk, my body doesn't let me. I spend as much time with other people as possible, so he can have more faces to watch and I can have a little downtime. We're working on getting him to bed earlier so that I can have a little sanity before bed. Either way, things are still complicated and the physical discomfort definitely makes it even harder to try to accept the aesthetics of my new body. 

So instead, I try to take as many fun pictures of Legan when he's smiling as I can, and I try to do my workouts with him. He's the weights for arm curls and shoulder presses for sure!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Pumpkin baby!

Second pumpkin baby!

Stitch baby!

Bunny baby!

Our carved pumpkins

Family Trick-or-Treating photo! The magician who pulled the bunny out of the hat!

Finally wearing the Bears outfit and it's CLEAN!

Love this bib, and love the baby falling asleep right there.

Sometimes what you really need for a nap is a cute hat, daddy, and a stretchy wrap!

Finally got him started napping and sleeping his first stretch at night on a flat surface by himself. YAY! Of course, I have to build him a little nest, but it's a good start. Aren't those little hands so so so sweet?

This was Mr. Legan avoiding bedtime after the excitement of Halloween. He was SO happy about it. It was another 30 minutes before we got him to bed, but at least he was giggling while avoiding.

Showing off those guns!

Just found this hat. Had to put it on him for a couple pictures before packing it away into the "much too small box."

It's still an awfully cute hat.

Showing off a new outfit!

And here's my daily dose of entertainment. He's gotten so much stronger in his saucer!