On Anna's Plate

Hi friends! Happy Tuesday!

We had an interesting night last night—Lila was SUPER fussy from about 5:30 to 7:30, but then she settled down, and by the time we were ready for bed at 10:30, she was happy as a clam.  She slept from 10:30 to 3, and 3 to 6.  I hope this schedule sticks—I’d love to have her “witching hour” fall early in the evening, as opposed to late at night (or, eek, in the middle of the night). 

Yesterday, we tried out a major piece of baby gear:

The ergo carrier! I have an ergo carrier and a moby wrap.  We tried the moby wrap over the weekend, but she still felt kind of small for it—I was worried that she wasn’t getting enough air! We’ll give it a go again soon…but for right now, the Ergo is working great!  As soon as we got her into it, she passed out:

…and stayed passed out for the entire time we were baking, plus a walk that we went on.  Not too shabby!

My mom and I made these granola cookies to take to the hospital and my doctor’s office as a thank you for all their help.  We made a LARGE recipe of dough, but you could obviously half it.  These cookies kind of fall into the “just throw whatever you want into the dough”-type recipe…and they turned out delicious. 

Granola Cookies

5 cups granola (we used Nature’s Path Flax Plus—so good)

1 cup coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup raisins

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup crushed potato chips (if you omit this, up the salt to 1/2 tsp)

2/3 cup ground flax

3.5 sticks butter

1.5 cups light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp. salt

2 cups all purpose flour

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients from granola through flax. 

In a standing mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy.  Add eggs.  Add flour slowly until combined.  With a large spoon or spatula, fold in granola mix until well-combined.  Dough will be very thick.

Drop by the tsp. onto a non-stick baking sheet.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until starting to turn golden.  Allow to rest on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing.

So good!  Great texture from the granola and all the add-ins, plus that nice mixture of salty and sweet from the chips.  Love it.

Hope you have a great Tuesday! We’re going to try to clean up this messy house a bit, and then I’m meeting with students for conferences later today.  Can’t believe it’s back to the grind already—but there are only a few weeks left in the semester.  I’ll be GLAD for summer!!

Have a great one!

Pasta…salad…bread…asparagus:

Dinner as usual.  Well, with one tiny exception:

Our newest dinner guest, of course. 

Today marks a week since we brought little miss home from the hospital…and dare I say I think we’re starting to feel a little more at ease?  I don’t want to jinx us, but I think we lucked out with a pretty good baby.  She sleeps a ton during the day.  At night, she’s been fussy from about 10pm to midnight, but then she settles right down and conks out until 6:30 or 7 (we wake her up for a mid-morning feeding—Ryan feeds while I pump).  Those two hours are rough—lots of wailing and screaming for no apparent reason that we can find (gas?  Maybe she just needs to cry?), but all in all, things are going really well here. 

My family was here all last week:

…which was a major help.  It was just nice to have people around to help out, clean the house, cook food…and above all else, provide a little moral support—the first week is pretty emotional!

Plus, Lila got to met her sweet cousin Sophie:

Big cousin and little cousin. 

My mom is going to be here for a few more days, but the rest of the crew went home yesterday.  The house seems so quiet now…until little miss opens her mouth, that is. 

An update on the feeding: still not going well.   Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all of your sweet comments about it—it was SO nice to hear that many of you had struggled with or knew someone who struggled with the same issues. 

We visited the lactation consultant again on Friday, and when she put Lila to the breast, she latched like an old pro—all of the pain was gone, and Lila was feeding perfectly.  So…basically, it’s just me.  My milk still hasn’t come in, almost ten days after having given birth.  I’m still pumping away, drinking the tea (yep, Mother’s Milk), taking two types of supplements, eating oatmeal, drinking tons of water, having skin-to-skin time, drinking a dark beer at night (twist my arm)…and when I pump, I usually get about half an ounce.

The lactation consultant was actually really reassuring.  She basically told me that I’m doing all that I can do, and that if the milk doesn’t come in, it’s just not going to—and that’s okay.  She said to give it another week with the pumping and supplements, and that if it still isn’t increasing…basically to move on. 

Anyway…I’ll let you know how it goes throughout the week!  She seems like she’s doing pretty well, regardless of where her food is coming from:

Today, we’re baking cookies to take to my doctor and the hospital nurses—they were all SO great throughout this whole process, from our first appointment to the labor and post-labor care. 

Hope you have a great Monday!

Ummmm…nope.

Hello, hello…is it Friday already?  I can’t believe almost a full week has passed since this sweet face came into our lives:

Crazy! I have a feeling the next few weeks (months, years) are going to fly.  Lila, don’t leave for college just yet, okay?

Things are going okay.  I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to talk about some of the things we’ve been dealing with in this period of great adjustment.  Honestly, Lila is an amazingly awesome baby (KNOCK on wood)—she’s a BIG sleeper, and basically sleeps the day away, only waking up to eat.  About half the time, we have to wake her up if she needs to eat—I think she’d honestly sleep for 6 hours at a stretch if we’d let her…which would be great for our own sleep, but not great for baby’s development. 

It’s the eating that’s the problem.

Like many women, I assumed breastfeeding would come easily for me.  Not because I’d heard it was easy—in fact, I felt pretty informed on how difficult it can be.  I’d read blog posts, listened to podcasts, heard from friends who told me how incredibly hard it could be.  I knew it was a possibility.

But in the back of my head, I think I just thought, “Not me.” 

Well…it’s me.

Although I think women are being a little more open about how difficult breastfeeding can be, I still think the majority of what you hear is more along the lines of how totally natural it is for both mom and baby.  That you just put the baby to the breast early on in the hospital, baby roots around, sometimes literally inches towards the nipple, finds it, and voila! You’re both breastfeeding! 

Um.  No.

We’re facing problems from both ends here.  Lila was having major trouble latching.  She was doing okay in the hospital—and by okay, I mean that after 10 minutes of red-faced, wailing frustrated cries, with the help of a nurse, I could finally force her onto the nipple and get her to feed for about 10 minutes—enough to get some colostrum, but certainly not enough for her to thrive once my milk actually came in. 

Ironically, this proved to not be as big a problem as I thought it would be, because my milk just isn’t coming in.  The lactation consultant we met with in the hospital said that my milk should be in by Wednesday at the latest, and here we are on Friday, still waiting for that flow.

Once we got home on Monday, things went from bad to worse on Lila’s end—she was totally rejecting any type of feeding at the breast, shaking her head, crying until she was red in the face and I was breaking down in sobs.  We began to use a nipple shield, which worked for about 2 feedings, but then she quickly grew frustrated with that as well.  It quickly became clear that even with the nipple shield and a latch from Lila, she just wasn’t getting anything.  Her diapers had all but stopped—no wet or poopy diapers to be seen. 

On Tuesday, we visited another lactation consultant who told me that her tongue was the trouble—but as I told Ryan, if I don’t have milk, it doesn’t matter how great  a latch she can get.  We left the lactation consultant with a bag full of different supplements designed to build milk supply and a hospital grade pump.  I was going to try pumping to build my supply—if the only breast milk Lila was going to get would be from a pumped bottle, well, that was better than nothing.

Well, I’ve been pumping since Tuesday, and my milk is still negligible.  My right breast literally gets nothing—I can pump for up to 45 minutes from it, and there will be a tiny dot of breast milk sitting in the pump flange when I’m done.  My left breast is a little better—but I think it only seems better in comparison to the right.  I’ve been pumping the left every 2-3 hours and coming away with less than half an ounce each time—not even enough to fully cover the bottom of the bottle.

Today, we’re going to visit the lactation consultant again to get advice on where to move forward from here.  I’m all about pumping if I can build up an actual flow of milk—but if pumping every two hours still isn’t yielding real results, obviously I’d rather spend that time enjoying our sweet little baby. 

On Tuesday night, we broke down and gave Lila her first bottle of formula…and honestly, instead of feeling guilty or sad, I felt relieved.  It was nice to see her sweet little face sucking at something—and actually getting nutrients from it!   We met with our pediatrician on Wednesday, and he assured us that we did the right thing.  He encouraged me to keep trying with the breastfeeding, but to supplement with formula in the meantime.

Still, as relieved as I was to give her that formula, it’s been an emotional week here.  I don’t think I knew how much I wanted to breastfeed until it was taken away from me…and now it feels like such a failure and disappointment that this is a part of new motherhood that I might have to sit out.  I hate it that my body can’t do “what’s natural” and provide everything this little girls needs to thrive and grow.  Still, I know that this is probably just one of the first times of many where things aren’t going to go exactly as I’d hoped or planned, and I think it’s best for all of us (me, Ryan, and Lila) to simply deal with it and move on instead of dwelling on how we’d wanted things to be.  I can bend over backwards and drive myself (and Lila) crazy with frustration trying to force breastfeeding to work in some form, or I can accept the fact that sometimes life doesn’t go the way you want it to go, thank my blessings that formula exists, and put my focus and energy into getting to know our sweet girl.

I know this is a long post, but I do think it’s important to talk about these things.  Again, so much of what we hear about breastfeeding is that it’s totally natural, if it hurts, you’re doing it wrong, it’s going to be easy, etc…and I wanted to put it out there that this just isn’t the case for some women.  And unfortunately, I seem to be one of them.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you have a great weekend!

Hi friends!

Thanks you SO much for all of your sweet comments—they mean the world to me.  We’re thrilled with the newest member of our family:

…and can’t wait to share all of our new adventures on the blog. 

Of course, the real adventure started on Friday night.  Several of you have sent e-mails asking about Lila’s birth, and I’m happy to share the details of what went down.  That being said, this post is definitely going to fall into the TMI territory, so if words like blood, sweat, tears, poop, and “IT BURNS!!!!” turn you off, consider yourself warned in advance and stop reading now. 

Labor officially started on Friday afternoon around 5:00, not that I actually thought I was in labor.  At that point, I’d had at least four bouts of really, really strong contractions that had lasted between 3 and 5 hours and then disappeared into thin air, so I assumed this was going to be more of the same.  We walked the dogs and I half-heartedly tracked the contractions with my i-phone app, but again, honestly, in the back of my head I just thought, “Oh, this isn’t it.”

But.  As they continued and didn’t let up, a tiny inkling of hope (and fear, ha) began to stir—maybe this really was labor?   At 9 pm, they were still coming about every 2-3 minutes and lasting for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.  At that point, I decided to take a warm bath, more as a distraction than anything else.  The bath caused the contractions to slow down quite a bit, which had me thinking again that maybe this wasn’t the real deal.  Finally, around 11, we decided to try to sleep.  In the past, my contractions had always disappeared when I  lay down to go to bed or take a nap.

But.  I couldn’t sleep.

Ryan hit the hay right away, but I tossed and turned, still working through each contraction and thinking with each one that maybe this really was it.  After 2 hours of restlessness, right around 1am, I felt a small pop within me…and then, the water came.  I sat up straight in bed and said to Ryan, “I think my water just broke!” and he shot up like an arrow.

Sure enough, as I sat up to make sure, I discovered that I was definitely…errr, leaking.  Suddenly, everything became MUCH more real—the contractions were real, my water had broken…and more than likely, we were going to have this baby TONIGHT!

We called our doula who asked about the intensity of the contractions.  She warned me that after the water breaks, the contractions get MUCH much stronger, and sure enough, within about a minute of my water breaking, the contractions were about tripled in intensity.  We needed to get to the hospital, asap.

After a bit of frantic last minute packing, we told the dogs that the next time we saw them…we’d have their new baby sister in our arms!  Then, we hit the road for the hospital.  Luckily, our hospital is all of 5 minutes away from our house—and that five minutes was still tough.  The contractions were coming VERY strongly at that point—I was having to really concentrate on breathing through each one individually. 

As the contractions grew more and more intense, I began to wonder if I was crazy for attempting natural childbirth.  We’d spent so much time preparing for this moment—we took Bradley classes, read the books, listened to the podcasts, worked with our doula—but I can tell you that nothing prepares you for the actual pain and intensity of working through those contractions, one by one. 

Still, by the time we got to the hospital, things began to move so quickly that I barely had time to think about whether or not I would be able to give birth without drugs.  When we got to the hospital, they quickly checked me in, got me on the hospital bed, and checked to see where I was at in my progress…and I was already at 7 cm! My doula whooped, and said, “That is GREAT.  This baby is COMING—now!”  I was so happy to hear that it probably wouldn’t be a long, drawn-out labor.  Even with the intensity of the contractions, at that moment, I just thought, “Okay.  I can do this,” and went into a zone of working through each contraction, one by one.

I’ll say right now that I don’t think I could have given birth without drugs without our doula.  She was amazing.  Ryan did exactly what I wanted him to do—provided moral support, stroked my head, told me how great I was doing.  He and our doula kind of worked in tandem, with Ryan providing the support I needed to get through each contraction, and our doula literally instructing me on ways to work through each one.  She dotted my head with cooling mint oil, and instructed me to breath down through each contraction, and to focus on the idea of moving down with my breath. 

After about an hour of the contractions growing more and more intense, the room seemed to buzz with the knowledge that this baby was coming SOON.  They checked me again around 3am and I was 9 cm.  At this point, my doctor (who was on call) arrived and told me, “You’re doing great!! You’re about to have your baby!!”  People warned me that giving birth in a hospital would lower my chances of being able to do it without drugs—that nurses and doctors would be offering me an epidural at every turn.  Luckily, this was not at ALL the case for me.  My doctor and the hospital nurses were nothing but 100% supportive—an epidural was never offered to me, and again and again they praised me for how well I was doing. 

They checked again at 3:15 and this time, I was at 10.  It was time to start pushing—and at the point, I don’t think they could have stopped me from pushing if they’d tried.  I was getting an incredible urge to bear down and get this baby OUT.

The pain at the point was still intense, but different.  People say that giving birth is like having to take the BIGGEST bowel movement of your life, and…yeah, it kind of feels like that.  It took me a bit to get the hang of pushing, but my doula and the doctor were offering instructions and words of support the whole time, and after about 20 minutes of intense pushing, my doctor told me, “Okay, this is it—she is ALMOST here.  Let’s do this.”  Three more intense pushes, and I could literally feel her moving through my body—it was like I could feel that she was right there on the brink.  And yes, this is the point where I gasped, “IT BURNS!!!!”  My doula quickly said, “That’s good!! She’s almost here.  Just push through that pain.”  After another intense two pushes, the room erupted in cheers—her head was through!  And then two more pushes, and I could feel her body slip through me. 

And then…she was here. 

The doctors quickly wiped her down and put her on my chest:

It was 3:59 am.  And nothing has been the same since. 

Some of the uglier parts of childbirth—um, I definitely pooped on the table.  The truth is, at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.  I also tore really badly—a 3rd degree tear that will take me about 6 weeks to heal from totally.  I’m not sure why I tore so badly—maybe because the pushing happened so quickly, or maybe it was just my bad luck.  In any case, I left the hospital with a nice prescription for pain medication, and even with the bad tear, I’ve been feeling better and better every day.

Am I glad I gave birth without drugs?  I am.  Do I think that it’s the only way to give birth, or the “right” way?  Nope.  That pain was HELLA intense, and if my labor hadn’t progressed so quickly, I don’t know how long I could have handled it.  I think each mom has to do whatever she has to do to make it through to that final goal—holding a sweet, healthy baby in her arms.   If the idea of giving birth naturally appeals to you, I say go for it—I can’t tell you how many people I had tell me I was flat-out crazy for even wanting to try, but I’m here to tell you that you CAN do it.  On the other hand…if you still think it’s nuts, I kind of don’t blame you.    That pain was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before—but it was surreally awesome, too.

Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing Lila’s birth story!  We’re still getting used to our new life over here—hopefully I can get another post up soon to tell you more about everything that has been happening.  But for now, I’ll just leave you with a few of my favorite shots of our sweet girl:

Have a great day!

Look who finally decided to show up this weekend:

Lila Scott! Turns out all we had to do was schedule the induction.    She arrived at 3:59 am on Saturday morning, happy and healthy.  We’re all doing great—still settling in and figuring out the whole nursing thing.  I’ll definitely put up a longer post in the next few days with more details, but she just couldn’t wait any longer to be featured on this blog that she’d heard so much about. 

Thanks for all your kind words and support about the newest member of our family—now the real fun begins!!

Hello, hello! How is your hump day going?

I’ll be honest—someone woke up with their cranky pants on this morning:

…and it wasn’t Baxter. 

We had our doctor’s appointment this morning, and I was still at 3 cm, and about 80% effaced…which was very exciting to hear three weeks ago.  Now that Lila is four days past her due date, not so much. 

Everything went fine—my doctor stripped my membranes (sorry, TMI), which might help prompt my body into labor.  And, we set up an induction date for next Monday.  I’ll be honest– setting the induction date was hard—I just SO want to go into labor naturally, on my own, if only because the stories I hear about painful induced births scare me. 

Still, this little girl is stubborn (wonder who she gets that from…), and so, if the only way to get her to come out and greet the world is to induce, then induce we will. 

Anyway, I think the combination of a horrible night’s sleep and my lackluster doctor’s appointment only worsened my bad mood.  I was feeling grouchy, cranky, and sorry for myself that my labor might not go as I’d hoped.

Then I took a nap.

And when I woke up, the most wonderful package had arrived:

A quilt from my dear friend Mindy!! I’ve posted about Mindy before—remember this adorable menu planner she made? 

Well, imagine my surprise when I woke up to find this beautiful baby quilt waiting for me on the front porch:

How talented is she?!?   She blogged about making the quilt here. 

The quilt is absolutely perfect in the nursery—I can’t believe how well it goes with the bird mobile:

And it’s so soft and snuggly—I can’t wait to cuddle Lila up in this quilt for years to come.  As I hung the quilt on the side of Lila’s crib, it hit me—who CARES how she gets here?!?  Induction, natural labor, medicated labor, c-section—we’re just incredibly lucky to be welcoming this baby into our lives, however and whenever it happens. 

Throughout the pregnancy, I’ve tried to tell myself to be open about the birthing process—to not get too tied down to one idea of how labor and delivery are going to go.  Even so, it’s hard not to get attached to the idea of having a “perfect” birth—whatever that might mean to you.  Obviously I’ve become more attached to the idea of going into labor naturally than I’ve been letting on…but for the next five days, I’m going to try to just let that go, and really focus on how lucky we are to be meeting and loving this sweet baby girl.

Okay.  Cheesy moment over.

Did you know that eggplant is rumored to induce labor?  The things the internet can teach you.  There’s a restaurant in Georgia that’s rumored to have sent over 300 ladies into labor over the years with its eggplant parm.

Well, we’re not driving to Georgia.  And I wasn’t in the mood for eggplant parmesan.  But how about something spicy instead?

I cooked up this delicious eggplant curry for dinner tonight, with leftovers to spare.  Delicious, eggplant-filled, and spicy…maybe this will do the trick?!

Green Curry with Eggplant, Zucchini, and Chickpeas

Ingredients:

coconut oil (or olive oil)

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 large eggplant, cubed

1 small zucchini, chopped into half-moons

1 can drained and rinse chickpeas

4 cups chicken broth

1 tbsp. minced ginger

1 can full-fat coconut milk

1/4 cup green curry paste

cayenne pepper to taste

salt, if needed (I didn’t use any because our chicken broth was regular-sodium)

Directions:

Heat 2-3 tbsp. coconut oil in a heavy-bottom pan.  Add garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes over low heat.  Add eggplant and zucchini, and cook for another 5-10 minutes.  Add chickpeas and chicken broth.  Bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes.

Reduce heat to low.  Once heat has reduced, add chickpeas, ginger, coconut milk, curry paste, and cayenne.  Stir well to incorporate the curry paste.  It will be very liquid-y at this point, but should thicken as it continues to cook.

Cook for 30-45 minutes over very low heat (barely at a simmer).  Cooking over low heat will prevent the coconut milk from separating, and will allow the eggplants to cook and thicken the dish. 

Serve over rice.

Mmmm…so good!  The curry got really thick and delicious from the eggplant.   Ryan and I both loved this meal…and I think Lila did too!

Okay…I think we’re going to take the dogs out for a late night stroll…hope you had a great Wednesday!

Hi friends!
Nope, no baby yet. 

I really have no excuse for the lack of blogging either, except that I’ve been feeling the urge to…disconnect.  All of the texts, phone calls, e-mails from friends and family have been SO nice—but, to be honest, I’ve been pretty much ignoring them.  I guess it’s normal to feel the urge to burrow away for the last week or so before you give birth, especially if you’ve gone past your due date.  I’ve been feeling pretty uncomfortable (SO glad I’m not going to be big and pregnant in the summer months—being pregnant in March is miserable enough!), and alternating between feeling anxious, antsy, excited, terrified—you name it.  So, in other words, we’ve been staying home a lot, just kind of taking in these last few days before the big change.

And eating, of course:

And now, for the good news—I got a job! Or, I guess I should say, I got a…promotion?  I’ll be moving up from an adjunct instructor to a full-time lecturer at our university next year.  I was a little hesitant to even apply for the position, because it involves a pretty intense teaching load—four classes in the fall, and four again in the spring.  That’s a lot for anyone to take on—and we’ll have a (relatively) new baby in the house on top of it. 

But, after weighing the pros and cons, I decided that I owe it to myself to at least give it a shot.  And I’m actually really excited to be teaching more classes again—it was nice to have a little break from a fuller schedule this past year, but I’m looking forward to getting back into it—stressful days, piles of papers and all!

Well…hopefully this won’t be the only good news we’ll be sharing this week! We have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and while I’m dreading hearing the i word (induction), it will be nice to get some answers about how the next few days are going to go down.

Thanks for all of the sweet e-mails, messages, and vibes you’ve been sending our way—they’re MUCH appreciated!