Gripe Water... Nectar of the Gods

Sophia has been real fussy lately at night. She has been getting up all hours of the night and fussing with gas and hiccups. She will keep us up and hour or two at a stint and just wail her lungs out. It is heart wrenching for me to hear her be so shrill knowing she is uncomfortable and in pain. It hurts my heart.

Enter my sister Cindy and harmonious angel harp music here. Cindy taught me about gripe water when she had Faith. It helps with bubbles, gas, indigestion, colic and hiccups. Exactly what Sophia is fighting right now. So we picked some up at the store yesterday and make sure she got some before she went to bed last night. It worked like a charm. She only got up twice last night. She fussed much less and didn't have a lot of air bubbles. Thank goodness. We all slept well last night as a result of it. So incredibly thankful, so incredibly thankful!

So much to write, So little sleep!!!!!

Sophia is now 13 days old. Oh my gosh. It is already going by so fast. The days have blended together, I dont know what month we are in or what day of the week is. Dan and I have become so sleep deprived it is ridiculous. We are trying to take shifts at night when sophia gets up. Her usual routine is 10 or 11pm, 1am, 2am, 5am and 8am. Unfortunately this is not set in stone and she has decided to stay up indefinately from 1am to 5am and it is killing us. I am beginning to think that she is developing colic. Crap. Not good. This could get dangerous from Dan and I real quick. Looking for some help and some great advice. What do we do now????

My mom came last week to help out. Huge help. Gave me some down time and let me sleep a bit. A week by ourselves and then Dan's parents are coming out for 4 days to help. Thank God. I cant say how important all the extra help is. I would go insane. And I need my naps. Let me stress that...... I NEED MY NAPS!!!!!!

Now lets just hope the few nights we have her alone with no help she actually sleeps.

Babies 1st Outing (Well Sort Of)

My Mom is coming down starting tomorrow to spend the week helping me out with Sophia and around the house. She tried making reservations this morning but for some reason (they said security measures) they could not take her credit card number over the phone. She called me and asked me if we would be so kind to run over to the hotel (a block up the street) and finish her reservation for her. Not a problem I said. So we packed up Sophia and the diaper bag, got in the car, headed over to the Hotel and then got gas on the way back. Sorry, Sophi that your first outing wasn't more exciting. Quite anti-climactic huh? Oh well, there is plenty more to do and so much time to do it in.

Babies 1st Roller Coaster Ride (Not Really)

A friend of mine from work, Brandi, had given me a baby bouncer for my baby shower. She swore by the thing and said it would lull and angry bull to sleep. So we decided to try it. On Day #2 of being home, we put Sophia in the bouncer near the slider. It was open with a fresh breeze coming through. The sun was shinning and coming in right on the carpet in front of her. Bandit decided to curl up right in front of her bouncer and take a nap. So we decided to put her in it and try it out. What do you think? Do you think it works........

Bandit & The Baby

One of the first things we wanted to do when we got home was to get Bandit acclimated to Sophia. We laid her out on the couch and allowed him to come up and sniff her. He started at her diaper and sniffed and then sneezed. How appropriate. These 2 don't know it yet but instead of being Thing 1 and Thing 2 they are going to be Stinky 1 and Stinky 2. He then sniffed her legs and licked them a little. He got down to her feet and started licking between her toes and it just sent her reeling. Either too much stimulation or it tickled one or the other.

A little while later he came back and sniffed her face. He then made his way to her hair and started licking her profusely. He was preening her. Welcome to the pack Sophia. Bandit gives you 2 paws up.

Going Home Day

I was exhausted.Sophia had kept me up all night Thursday night. I had to sleep. I just had to sleep. So I took a nap around 9am and slept till about 11:30am. When I awoke, Dan was sitting at the edge of my bed starring at me. It was kind of creepy. He said are you awake I need to talk to you. I was instantly in a panic. He said Sophia was fine, then I asked about myself and he said I was fine. He said because I was doing so well recovering the Dr. had signed off on my discharge papers the night before and we were supposed to leave the hospital on Friday instead of Saturday. Discharge is at 11:00am everyday. It was now 11:30am. OMG!! Crap!! Pack the bags we've got to go. If we stay the insurance wont cover it. Oh no! Dan said to calm down. That because of the mix up and them not telling us we could take our time getting ready and packing up no big deal. OMG! What a scare. Dan had taken the liberty of packing his car with as much as he knew he could pack. Dan had been driving his car back and forth to and from the hospital since he slept each night at the house. The problem was the car seat was installed properly and was in my car. So while I finished signing paperwork, ordering my prescriptions, packing and cleaning up, Dan went back to the house, dropped off his car and unloaded it, picked up my car and headed back to the hospital. Lunch came and I took the liberty of sitting down to relax and eat. Dan finished packing the car, I packed up Sophia, we went down stairs to the pharmacy in my wheelchair, picked up my prescription, brought the car up from valet, packed ourselves in and headed home to start our new life as a family.......just the 3 of us.

Our Hospital Stay

Our hospital stay was awesome! If I could rate the hospital I would give it an "A+++". All of the nurses and volunteers were so nice and accommodating. They really did cater to our every need. They were so sweet. Given my c-section there is not much I can do about anything. They didn't want me out of bed the first day and a half. Someone had to hand me Sophia to feed her and take her away. Someone had to diaper her. Someone had to change my sheets, bring fresh linens, bring me my food and take my tray away, bring me my medicine and help me shift in bed so as not to have anything fall asleep. I was helpless and for this Type A personality chick this was hell on earth. Thank God for the staff at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance and my husband, they were such angels.



I started out on a clear liquid diet. It kind of sucks. They were afraid I might get sick from all of the anesthesia if I didn't. But eventually I was able to get back on solid foods. The hospital food was great actually. They even had a special celebration dinner for Dan and I. I ordered the Fillet Mignon and Dan ordered the salmon. It came with asparagus and yellow and orange carrots, twice baked potatoes and sparkling apple cider. And then to finish it all off, dessert was 2 tiny little pink cakes topped with white chocolate surrounded in white chocolate that read It's a girl. (This was my favorite part hee, hee!!!)

Poor Dan though, the fold out chair that they had for him pulled out into a twin bed. Our Postpartum room was 1/3 the size of our labor and delivery room and it was a bit cramped. Dan didn't even have the strength the first night to open it up. By the time it came to the second night and opening it up, we decided to send him home in the middle of the night to get some sleep. He would have been no good to me in the morning had we not. Plus, nurses were coming and going every hour on the hour to check my vitals, check Sophia's vitals, take blood, deal with lab results, deal with my I.V., give me my pain medicine (percoset, vicodin, Motrin- I.V. grade, and Demerol). Yeah, serious stuff. Could kill a body like mine- you know me I cut my Tylenol in half. Dan says I was so doped up during labor and delivery and then in the O.R. that I started telling jokes- really bad ones at that. I guess he told me to keep my day job and all the Dr.'s laughed.

When it was finally time for me to get up and down I was miserable. My belly and abdomen hurt so much. i don't wish this type of pain on my worst enemy. Thank goodness for hospital beds. I would have to incline the bed, use the side railing to roll myself over, lift myself off the bed with my arms, roll my legs off the bed and then sit there for about 5 minutes, until I could actually stand up. And then I would get dizzy and need another 5 before I could go any where. This got better day by day. Eventually I got the knack of it.

For a regular natural birth you get to stay in the hospital for 52 hours. For a c-section you stay for 96 hours. Our original check out was for Saturday but because I was making so much progress so quickly recovering the Dr. signed me off to go home early on Friday.