First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school! Everyone was super excited, especially Mommy! hehehe...

For Chicken-hair, today is his first day in the big kids' school building and his first day wearing a uniform. He has been at the school for 2 years but preschool and pre-K are in a separate building and the kids just wear playclothes. So his first day of Kindergarten was a real thrill! He put on his uniform this morning and said, "I look like a man!" He is in the same class as his best buddy and we are all very relieved about that! There are only 2 classes per grade in Kindergarten and sometimes 1st and sometimes 2nd. From 3rd grade on, there is always just one. So we only have to worry about that for a couple of years LOL Anyway, he had a great day and when we picked them up after school, he said, "This is the funnest day of my life!"

Junior started 4th grade today and also has something special this year. It is his first year that he is allowed to bring a rolling backpack. You would be surprised at how important that is to the kids! LOL They have been watching the older kids pull their wheeled backpacks across the playground for years, just waiting for their chance! When we picked them up after school, he told me that only one student didn't have wheels and he said, "I don't know WHY she wouldn't get a backpack with wheels!" He was really shocked that she would pass up the opportunity now that they finally are allowed LOL

Thrush update

OK so the ped. found a little of the thrush in his mouth so we are sure that is what it is. Well I was sure yesterday but obviously his doctor wasn't sure until he saw it today LOL

Good news: As long as we catch it fast, we are able to get rid of it fast. He went from 4 big patches last night to one small spot today.

He said to keep doing what we are doing with the Nystatin and if for some reason it doesn't go away completely, he will put him on the Diflucan again. He also said to try and get rid of the pacifiers because then there will be nothing to give it to him again. Using a mini makes him produce more saliva, making his mouth more wet and more able to grow yeast. I had read that already. We thought we could get rid of them today because Gama was pretty sure he could get him to sleep without it. But we weren't able to when we came home and tried to get him to nap. So we have decided for now to at least take it out of his mouth after he falls asleep. I will have to make sure to boil them everyday and give him brand new ones once the thrush is gone this time. Hopefully he won't get it again!

More good news: He is otherwise healthy and very happy. The thrush can't be bothering him too much. And he was 12 lb. 3 oz. which means he gained a pound and a half this month! =)

Here is a pic of him from this weekend:

More thrush...

This is so frustrating. I knew I would have to be on the lookout for it since we have dealt with it twice. But to be honest, I really didn't think it would come back again, at least not so soon.

I think this happened for two reasons. The main reason is that I forgot about boiling and replacing his minis(pacifiers) this time. The other is that we did the nystatin in his mouth for a week after it was gone and we probably should have gone 10-14 days. So once we stopped the nystatin, he kept using the minis which weren't sterilized or replaced and he got the thrush back.

So far, at least I am not showing signs of it. I was just about to stop doing my own medicine as I was getting to the end of one tube and figured that was when I'd stop. But last night, I opened a new tube. I have to do what it takes to keep my skin healthy so that I can keep nursing.

I am trying not to let it get me down too much. Thrush is something I am going to have to learn to live with, it seems.

Hunting for Transformers...

Junior just came in with a mini-con and asked me to hide it so that he and Chicken-hair could search for it with their transformers. When I went into their room, he grabbed one more mini-con and said to hide both. They each have a transformer and they went into my room so that I could hide the mini-cons.

I think this is going to work out great. It is totally keeping them busy and they are super excited about it. We might have to play this game everyday! LOL

Oh -- just as I was about to save this post, I heard Chicken-hair's voice, very excited, saying, "Mini-con! Mini-con! I found it!"

Adventures in nursing...

Bucket and I started out with a great breastfeeding relationship. For the first 10 days, everything was easy and I had no pain. I was cautiously optimistic, knowing that I had never made it to day 10 without having intense pain at the beginning of each feeding.

Well... after those first 10 days, the pain started. First I was just a little sore. Then I started to crack a little on each side. I tried my best to deal with it, using a lot of Lansinoh, pumping a little at the beginning of each feeding to draw it out so it would be easier for him to latch on, those sorts of things.

What I didn't realize was that Bucket had thrush, a terrible yeast infection, in his mouth. I saw the white stuff but thought it was from my Lansinoh and ignored it. Bucket gave it to me and suddenly my skin was bright red and I had more cracks! And the cracks felt like salt was being rubbed into them every time he latched on. The pain got more and more intense and I kept reading up on ways to help with soreness. Finally, after about a week, I realized that we both had thrush.

We went to the doctor and she put him on oral suspension Nystatin and me on Nystatin cream. Unfortunately, the infection was so bad, it didn't work enough. For the first few days, it was improving. But day 10 was just as bad as day 3 so we went back to the doctor. He put Bucket on diflucan which is taken once a day for 10 days and gets rid of the thrush from the inside out instead of just topically like the nystatin. He said I'd be fine as soon as Bucket got rid of it because he'd stop giving it to me. But I was miserable.

Two days later, I went for my 6 week check-up. I told my OB and she put me on diflucan too. First she just put me on 2 pills to be taken one that day and one a week later. But a couple of days after that, I was still so miserable, I called and got them to put me on a 10-day dose, like Bucket.

During those 10 days, I continued trying every cream and ointment I could get my hands on. I was pumping for as many feedings as I could, to try and rest my sore girls a little. The pump still worked them but not quite as hard. I was crying pretty much everyday as I was in pain and felt like nothing was working.

Finally, in the middle of the night, at 6.5 weeks, after fighting this infection for 4 weeks, I couldn't take it any longer. I told Gama to go ahead and buy formula. I was so depressed and beaten... I didn't know what to do. A few hours later, I told him I'd try to nurse sometimes and do formula for other feedings and see what happens. We gave him formula for 24 hours to try and let me heal. I nursed him the next day, once on each side, and felt a lot better. The day after that, I decided to try feeding him twice a day. By the second day doing that, the cracks were all open again and even the pump hurt. Feeling so defeated and so sad, I decided to stop altogether, at least for the time being. I didn't know what else to try and I had to heal.

When I got to the end of my 10-day dose, I called my OB to ask for more because I felt like it wasn't gone yet. She said she didn't want to give me anymore pills and that she thought my skin was probably just still irritated. She told me to use the nystatin mixed with desitin. I tried that for a couple of days, all the while still buying and trying new things, Grapefruit Seed Extract pills to take 3x a day, acidophillus pills 1x a day, Grapefruit Seed Extract spray to put on my skin, Lansinoh, Mustela healing cream, Nipple Nurture cream...

After the 5 days, I was so sad and brokenhearted over not nursing, I had to try it again. My cracks had all healed but my skin was still red and peeling and puffy. I decided to just try once a day on each side. I knew my milk was gone already and that it would be work to get it back. I knew he'd need bottles after but I needed to nurse him. I started doing the right side in the morning and the left at night. It was working OK.

On the third day doing that, we went to his doctor for his 8 week check-up. I told the doctor everything and he said that if I took the diflucan for 10 days, I probably didn't have the yeast anymore and really was irritated most likely. He gave me an antibacterial ointment and told me to use it with cortaid 4 times a day. Within a couple of days, my skin was sooooooooo much better. I was so relieved! The yeast really was gone!

A few days later, I started nursing 4x a day, twice on each side. Each side was getting 12 hours of rest in between feedings. I was doing OK. A few days like that and I moved up to 6x a day. After a couple of days, I went to 7x a day. And after like a day of that, I went back to all nursing. When I was at 6x a day, he stopped needing any formula after nursing. My milk was back. yay!

About a week after everything was back to normal, he got thrush again... I couldn't believe it. My left side started to crack a tiny bit where one of the old cracks had been. I was so scared and so depressed. Immediately, we started medicine on both of us. This time, the oral nystatin worked on Bucket. I was using Lotrimin because I have started to believe that the nystatin was too harsh for my skin. Within a day or two, all signs of yeast were gone. We also started giving him one bottle in the middle of the night to rest my skin a little bit. We kept up the meds and are still doing them today, a week after the yeast disappeared. Charlie's medicine is running out and we will probably only have enough to do it a few more times. But the yeast has been gone for a whole week so we should be OK for now.

If it comes back again, we will get the doctor to call in another prescription for the nystatin and I will go back to my meds too. As long as we catch it early, we should be able to get rid of it. And as long as I can get rid of it without cracking, I will be OK.

Bucket, born June 1, 2008

I can't believe Bucket is almost 11 weeks old and I haven't yet posted a birth story. Not only that, but I can't find the one I typed out and emailed...

Here goes. Wednesday, May 28, I had an appt. with my OB. She told me I was 3 cm dilated. That hadn't changed from the week before. The next day, we took the kids to Disneyland. I wanted to make sure we got one more trip in before the baby was born and our passes expired. I knew we wouldn't be buying new passes for a while. We walked around all day and the spotting I had been having started to increase a little.

Friday morning, I woke up with contractions. The lasted pretty much all day. They would subside for an hour or two at a time but I would also get them for 3-4 hours at a time, about every 5 minutes and strong enough that I paid attention to them. Friday night, we went to dinner at Spaghettini and I told Gama we better go to the hospital after dinner. He talked me into going home and I was actually able to sleep through the night although every time I woke to go to the bathroom, I was still having contractions.

Saturday morning, I still had them. While talking to my mom, I had to keep stopping to deal with them. She said I was crazy not to go to the hospital. I told her I was going to get ready for the day and maybe we'd all go to lunch first at least. My shower seemed to calm the contractions down. We went to lunch and I was contracting but OK. We headed to the mall next to buy shoes for Junior. While we were there, they started getting stronger and when I went to the bathroom, the spotting looked more like bleeding. I called the OB and got Dr. K because my doctor, Dr. A was not on call that weekend. He said to go get checked out.

My mom took the 3 boys home with her and we got to the hospital around 5 or 5:30. The nurses checked me and I was 4-5 cm. and -3 station. They called Dr. K and he said to keep me, based on the fact that I was almost 2cm further along than 3 days before and also that this was my fourth and I live 30 min. from the hospital. For the next 5 hours, I was monitored, walked around, etc. He got there at 10:30 and I was 6 cm. and -1 station. He broke my water and the very next contraction had me calling for the epidural LOL

About 90 minutes after having my water broken, he checked again and I was at 10! He told the nurse to let me "labor down" for 30 minutes and he left the room. About 10 minutes later, I started feeling a ton of pressure down there and the nurse said I could push against it if I wanted to and that it might make me feel better. It did! I pushed for about 10 minutes and they started seeing more and more of his head. They gave me the mirror to see for myself. I pushed for about another 5 minutes and one of the nurses said she better go get the doctor. She walked out the door and the other nurse went to the other side of the room to do something. Suddenly, I yelled out, "I feel his head moving! I think it is coming out!" She said, "It's OK!" and in one pop, there was his head LOL As the nurses came towards me and Dr. K walked into the room, I said, "He is coming!" and he said it was OK to push. As they got to me and grabbed his head, the rest of him popped out quickly LOL It hurt this time. I had the epidural but it must have been wearing off because I felt a lot. But it was so fast. I yelled OW OW OW OW OW!!! and then it was done!

They put him on my chest and covered us with my gown and the blanket and I just hugged him and kissed him and rubbed his back. They rubbed him down a little bit and let us hang out for a while before weighing him and stuff. He came into the world at 7 lb. 6 oz. and 20 inches. He is just so cute and has gotten cuter and cuter each and everyday. There is nothing like having a brand new baby look up at you with those sweet curious eyes!