And oh my - have we started 3 months out with a bang!
It appears as if little Miss Samantha is teething already. Out of no where she started getting fussy Monday night, which turned into miserable, which turned into inconsolable. She wasn't hungry, and she wasn't running a fever, so after doing some research I deducted it could have been teething... from what I read, it could start as soon as 3 months, or as late as 12 months, some sooner, some later, and it could still be months before a tooth breaks through. So after another night of inconsolable fussiness, I decided to call on the pediatrician Wednesday morning and get to the bottom of all this.
Well, when I called, the pediatrician made me feel like the worst mother ever. I told them she had been inconsolable for the last couple of nights, and she was still congested in the mornings, but there was no fever, and she wasn't having any trouble breathing, or any other change in habits... "Well, you HAVE to come in today, we HAVE to look at Samantha!" Umm... yeah I know. That's why I was calling...? So we got an appointment at 9am, which sucked a little because it was 8:30am when I called, and neither she nor I were dressed for the day.
We got in and they weighed her per usual - 12lbs 4oz - and then the pediatrician came in, and luckily it wasn't the one on the phone who made me feel like shit... that one I had to deal with for a day at the hospital and she bothered me even then. Anyway, she looked her over, checked her ears and her temp and her mouth, and sure enough, my maternal instincts were correct - Sami is an early teether. Baby Oragel was suggested, so I hurried my butt on over to Target to get some ASAP to help put my little girl out of her misery.... wait, that sounded worse than I wanted it to. But you know what I mean.
Also, I mentioned the congested nose she keeps getting in the morning, and how when I go to aspirate it, nothing's coming out. Diagnosis is that her nasal passages are just dry from the heat, much like ours get, and saline drops and a cool-mist humidifier should do the trick. So saline drops have been gotten, but we still need to get on that humidifier. And the minute I put the drops in her nose yesterday morning, didn't she sneeze right away and a huge booger came flying out? That's my girl!
So now that we know what the issue really is, it's getting a little bit better to manage, though it just breaks my heart knowing that there's really nothing else I can do for her other than be the mommy and let her cry into my shoulder.
On the upside to it all? This has been night #3 where she's slept through from 10-11pm until 6:30am. Which is making pumping in the morning a hell of a lot easier now. She'll wake up at 6:30am, I'll feed her from one side, and then put her back to bed... she usually falls right back asleep, which I am SO grateful for. And then, I'll go and pump the other side since I really need to be working on getting my supply up for when daycare starts. I think I figured if I send her with 4 bottles/day it should be enough to last.... they might even be able to get away with 3/day. But I think she might be drink up to 5oz at this point - I have to go to the lactation clinic one more time before work begins to make sure.
Work... wow. Yeah, work starts up again a week from Monday. It's crazy. I never thought 3 months would go by so fast. But I think I have a pretty good schedule figured out (which reminds me, I should really remember to email my bosses and let them know). Sami's daycare drop off will be 8:30am, so I'll swing Chris by the station before that. I work in the same town as the daycare, so I should be at work no later than 8:45am. Daycare will keep her for 9.5 hours, so that makes me feel a little better, especially since I'm going down to a 4-day work week, so so long as I pick her up by 6pm, everything should work out.
And then there's pumping while on the job. This one I THINK I have figured out, but it might work more smoothly in my head than in reality. I figured, I will need to pump every 3 hours, maybe 4 to maximize the amount pumped per session. So I'll go to my car, plug in my Medela to the cigarette lighter (yay adapter) and it shouldn't take me more than 20 minutes at a time. I don't smoke, and I rarely go out for lunch, so these will be my breaks, and I'll eat at my desk while working, and hopefully that'll be ok. We're a very small company, and an even smaller office, so sadly there's no way I'll be able to pump in the suite. And I just don't want to consider expelling my daughter's food source while standing in the handicapped bathroom stall. Blegh. So we'll see how it goes. I'm really crossing my fingers that it doesn't stress me out too much, but chances are it probably will.
But it's going to be bittersweet. I know this. I'll be a mess dropping her off for the first time, but I'm also looking forward to having a schedule and a routine again. But I'm going to miss our days together. I mean... who wouldn't miss this face??
