Whiney whiner...

I just have to get this off my chest...when my sister-in-law and her family (husband, 3-year-old twins [IVF encouraged after a 6 year struggle with infertility] and 6-month-old miracle baby), my bff (and her husband and 2-week-old miracle baby after 2 years of infertility), and my friend (and her husband, 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old "surprise" twins) all came at once to meet Felicia when she was 1 week old (it was a crazy day!) the friend with the daughter and twins announced that she is expecting baby #4. At the time she was 8 weeks along. Is it ridiculous of me to be annoyed?! I am sure I sound like a 2-year-old whining, but, Hey! Don't steal my thunder when everyone was gathered to meet our new little one for the first time! And don't announce a pregnancy to 3 fertility challenged couples and mention that you are pretty sure you timed things right to even get the gender you are hoping for (they have 3 girls and, as my friend put it, they "put in their request with NFP to get a boy this time") and that the due date is exactly when you planned for it to be. After she told all of us, she showed us her sea-bands that she was wearing for her nausea and said, "I thought you guys would notice these at the hospital when we were visiting J." ("J" is my bff's baby that was born 9 days before Felicia. We were all at the hospital at the same time to visit). 

Now she keeps e-mailing me for "advice" about morning sickness and baby products and with updates about heartbeats and how they plan to find out the gender of their "darling girl" or "handsome boy" - her words, no, I am not kidding). Am I a terrible friend for just not caring? Especially now that I have a baby? I have one. Where are these feelings coming from? 

This is the same friend, that KNOWING MY DESIRE FOR A CHILD, told me about a year and a half ago, I wish I was as nice as you! You are always so happy for everyone, even when they are all getting what you want. 

Sorry for the whining. I am done.

1 month

Felicia at 1 month:

• Weighs 10lbs, 6oz 
• Measures 22.75 inches long
• Loves to cuddle, to look at her papa, to listen her mama singing, to dance, and to stay up at night!
• Goes by "Piggy the Pooh" "Little Muncher" and "Ponyo"
• Talks and smiles in the morning
• Hates having her face and neck washed
• Eats every 2-3 hours

We are so grateful to have been given this sweet and funny little girl!

Colic?!

Felicia had 4 good nights in a row and I kept telling myself not to get too excited about it! I am glad I didn't get used to 3-4 hour stretches of sleep in the night because last night was another rough one. Probably the roughest we've had so far, actually! I am not sure if she is just fighting sleep so much that she gets overstimulated or if she is uncomfortable from something like tummy troubles, but last night we started wondering if we are beginning to see a touch of colic.

For 3.5 hours we took turns walking, rocking, swaying, shushing, singing, reading, diaper changing, feeding (well, the feeding part was all me)...we tried everything we could think of. We gave her baby gas drops for the first time and I got her pacifiers ready (they were still in the package so I had to sterilize them by boiling for 5 minutes) but we didn't end up using them. We swaddled her. We even let her just lay on a blanket to kick and move around. The things that seemed to calm her most were: laying diaperless on her changing pad, leaning on my thighs while I rubbed her belly, sitting with me and reading stories (my voice calmed her, I think), and laying skin to skin on her papa's chest. Ultimately, laying skin to skin with The Bee put her to sleep (we are not sure if she was just so exhausted at that point or if it was what she actually needed). Now I have a sleepy little girl laying in bed next to me a 11am.

I am going to try to get out to the library with her today to check out (or at least reserve) some books/dvds about baby massage. I think that massage may be a good thing for her; if we can keep her relaxed we may be able to avoid the big wind up that we saw last night. Baby massage is also supposed to help with digestive issues. We don't think she really has tummy troubles because she poops and pees like a champ, doesn't seem to be gassy, and I haven't changed anything about my diet, but if that is the problem, massage should help. It was so hard to hear her crying like she was...at times she seemed almost hysterical and we couldn't comfort her. We felt completely helpless. Here's hoping and praying for a better night for this little love of ours!

Baptism

Felicia was baptized at the church I grew up attending. I was baptized there, attended 8 years of Catholic school there, had my first communion, first reconciliation, went through confirmation classes (the actual confirmation was at the Basilica instead of the normal church), and The Bee and I had our wedding there, too! It was a small ceremony because it was after mass and only our families were there with us in the baptistry. Also, a few of our siblings couldn't make it due to the snow storm that was going on all weekend! It was still nice and I feel a sense of relief that it is over now :) We didn't get many good photos because the light wasn't very good in the baptistry (no windows!) and our camera was not behaving for our bro-in-law who graciously agreed to act as photographer. The Bee took a few photos as well, but neglected to get some full body shots to show the gown :( Oh well! We gathered at my Mom's house for cake, refreshments, and visiting following the ceremony.

Bullet point post

Things are busy, but good. Here are some little tidbits of info:

• The lactation consultant appointment was so helpful! I found out that I have a crazy milk supply and that, even though she was only eating off of one side while I pumped to heal the other, she gained 9oz in 5 days! We have ourselves a little piglet! One majorly helpful change we made after the appointment was that I have to lean back while she is eating, otherwise she pretty much drowns in my milk. Poor girl was being overwhelmed! 
• Because she is such a good eater, she no longer fits in her newborn clothes. Yay for growing/thriving! Sad face for cute clothes she never even got to wear.
• Breastfeeding gets easier every day! She can latch herself on successfully most of the time now! A huge improvement over the 3 person ordeal it used to be! (3 people = me, Felicia, The Bee who had to help keep her hands out of the way!)
• I am way excited about 2 packages that I have being shipped right now! I have been extremely reasonable and haven't purchased much baby-wise but did splurge on these wooden blocks:

source

           and these washable, organic nursing pads (crazy milk supply = crazy leakage):

source

• Felicia does not like to sleep. At all. Nights are rough and she even fights it during the day now. I have learned her tired cues, though, and know that cuddles and rocking in her room usually do the trick during the day. At night...well, we're still trying to figure that out!
• Felicia has baby acne like whoa. We were told she would probably get it around 2-3 weeks of age because she had a little rash the day after being born in reaction to the environment outside of the womb. Apparently most babies that get that rash (which is thankfully harmless) get acne after a couple of weeks.
• If all goes well, she will be baptized on Sunday! It has been a whirlwind to get planned because Catholic churches no longer like to do baptisms during Lent (which begins next week on February 13) but we couldn't register her until we got her birth certificate, which just became available last week (and I went and got 2 copies of last Friday! It was our first outing without The Bee!). It was important to me to do sooner than later (we'd have to wait until April if we couldn't this coming Sunday) because I want her to wear the family baptismal gown that my great-great-grandmother (Mabel Felicia, who Felicia is named for) made and every girl in the family has worn for almost the last 100 years! Because it is 98 years old and babies were: 1. smaller 100 years ago and 2. baptized within a few days/weeks of being born there is little to no chance that Felicia would fit in it when she is 3 months old. 

That's about it for now!