My Lady of the Lantern

Figlia is now seven weeks old. Just want to put out some updates here: - Like I mentioned before, I now have a visual record of her fully awake smile...the conscious smile...not the sleep-induced one, of which there are lots of pictures. - She had her routine vaccinations and weight check on Saturday, and she has gained a little more than 350 gms in 11 days, which is fantastic....am so happy about it. Thank you, thank you people for the support on breastfeed + top feed. - I have a formula feeding schedule for her....She gets my milk through out the night...but she gets one 60 ml and one 30 ml feed in the morning, and three top feeds in the evening...in a combination of 30/60ml. Rest all feeds are from the breast. ( This changed over the last two days ) - There is a sleep pattern that is now emerging....mostly helped by my gradual realizing of what makes her sleepy, and keeps her so. - Figlia is a snuggler. I co-sleep. Once the last feed of the night is done - which is around 10:30...

The first thing I remember on entering the operation theatre was that there were way too many male OT technicians... I did not need much help getting on the operation table. There was an orchestrated flurry of activity around me. The anaesthesiologist came in. He was bursting with sunshine and rainbows....he told me it won't hurt a bit....my bare back-open gown was opened further....a cold liquid was applied. I could sense the needle approaching my spine *~ . And I stared at the blobs of light right over my head. I kind of lost it at that very moment. I told myself - I won't put my body through this ever again. Never. The needle entered. The deed was done. I lied down, and everything picked up momentum. Remember, this is me....the one who was sure of wanting this again. So hubby and I are chatting a few days after Figlia is born. And he says something to the effect of,  "We can try again in a couple of years..." Remember, this is him....who has always remaine...

With the length of TTC behind me, my one dream in this journey became the wish to know what a BFP looked like. What it felt like to be sitting in a waiting room, not waiting to join the range of pregnant bellies but rather walking with one. When I did become pregnant, and felt all that I wanted to know the joy of pregnancy, and I was joyed everyday about the fact that there would be a baby at the end of this. I enjoyed my growing belly rather than feel the need to cover the bulge. I loved it. When I went for my C-section last year, my senses were focused on hearing the baby's first cry, finding out the gender and all that. Then the ground shook, and I lost the dream. I went back to the zero from where I had started. It was not even a zero. It was somewhere below. My fingers were still tingling from the fact that I had cracked my dream at the very hair-width of fruition. Then I started trying again. I became pregnant. My focus went from trying to get pregnant, to staying pregn...

Don't want to really say that there is a lot of crying happening....but when it does, I usually run the following macro to identify the problem... I want milk. I am about to poo. I want some more milk. I have peed. Jeezus Lady, get them teats ready. I am sleepy, and don't want to sleep. Is there a milk truck nearby? Grrrrripe. Gas. Grrrrripe. Milk. That's it. Milk. And today, I caught the first open-eyed smile from Figlia. She is quite the smiler, and belts out smiles regularly when she is asleep...but it was the first awake-smile I caught today morning!

I had a total facepalm moment....I wasn't party to the conversation directly...I was narrated the deal...and jeez, I am not as thick-skinned as I want to be. I know that the lady who belted this will remain a part of 'our' life always, but I would not want to remember this...I want to just sweep it under the rug. Rather, I want that by some crazy lightning miracle, the lady would gain some sense. A: I am only worried about Figlia's weight. Brazy: Oh, it is okay....girls pick up weight easily, and you know what, after a while, one must cutback the amount of food given to them or they will just keep on putting weight. Really? At some apt age, I must start keeping my daughter hungry? Really? Accccck! Also, my heart broke at Mo's news. Her precious baby boy is no more . If you haven't already, please do visit her and send your thoughts and prayers.

This is about She...someone in the family. I generally like She, except that I had forgotten her potential for bull crap. What I remember is that her kid was on Lac.togen from almost day one. So, I was having some lactation related conversation and this is what she told me: ".... and kiddy arrived four days before the due date, and so my milk came only five days after the due date. Also, I am very thin, so the milk dried a month after it came, so I had to go onto Lacto.gen...." Puhleeeease! Which brings me to how I am. The same attitude that I had about sharing my infertility struggles, is what has kind of spontaneously extended to my lactation/baby's weight issues. As experience taught me, talking freely about my cycles did not offer more than gossip value to most people around me. I see the same happening for lactation as well. I want to save myself the ' judging '. Even though I can always quote the fact that my doc made me do it, there will be some of ...

Because I did not want to clutter her story with any more tidbits than the bites I added, I would just like to add that we would have wanted Figlia weighing a little higher than she did at her birth. (And then she lost some weight, as all neonates do, and she got slotted in the LBW kids, which irritates me.) Surprisingly, the lagging weight, and lagging AC was visible in the ultrasounds. Nothing awfully wrong happened to exist with my daily diet and nutrition. However, I had some fluctuations in my weight during the end, and even though the baby continued to put on weight, it did not happen the way it should have. In the end weeks too, Figlia gained on an average about 100 gms every week. In the very end, when the mystery for the weight issues did not get solved, my met.formin intake was halved. Figlia gained 100 mgs in 4 days flat! I am not saying that ultrasound weight measurements are perfect, but there was general sense of progress/status with it.... Since then, I have been goo...