A Post About Me

This blog has basically become a blog about Noah. That's all there is really time to talk about, and frankly when you're a parent your life is taken over by that little one and you forget that you're a seperate person. I say this in a good way.

A few people have kindly wondered how things are going with me lately, considering all the things that have happened in the last year. So here are the updates on me.

First, the good:

My burcitis is completely gone. It's funny; when I was pregnant it was the most excruciating ain everytime I laid on either side. It felt like my hip bones were two spikes digging into my skin. Literally as soon as I gave birth that pain went away. I had Noah at 1:54pm, and by the time I "went to bed" that night it was almost 100% better ("went to bed" is in quotations because I couldn't sleep a wink that night. I was way too keyed up, plus I had Noah in my arms all night).

My pubic bone injury is now healed. It took awhile, actually. It felt a LOT better as soon as I gave birth; the pain was probably at 20% of what it was before I delivered. But 20% of excruciating is still painful. It probably took about 3 months for it to stop hurting when I moved in certain ways or went on a walk.

My back is fine, too. It was so bad the week before I delivered (damn chiropractor went out of town... horrible person)... between my back and my pubic bone I was completely bedridden, using crutches to walk, and even with the crutches I was in tears because the pain was so bad. My back was pretty much 100% better as soon as I delivered.

Now, the bad:

I'm still anemic. I'm still taking my PregVit and extra iron, but I still have low iron.

My colitis is the same.

I got a Live Blood Analysis done in the middle of June. They look at your blood cells live and they can see all kinds of problems. I'm not going to list all the issues I have, because that would take forever. But apparently almost all of my problems are caused by candida (yeast). The naturopath said that was the cause of my colitis. Unfortunately, I can't treat that until I'm done nursing, because the supplements aren't compatible with breastfeeding. I plan to keep breastfeeding until Noah is at least a year, so I have at least 7.5 months before I can do anything about my candida overgrowth. Which means I have a long time of dealing with my array of issues.

I'm sleeping like CRAP. Noah is sleeping really well, and I should be able to get at least 9 hours a night. But I'm lucky if I get 5 or 6. I just wake up and cannot fall back asleep.

I'm pretty sure I have developed restless leg syndrome. My legs don't hurt, but they're just uncomfortable. I'm only comfortable in a position for about 5 minutes, and then I HAVE to move because my legs are uncomfortable. 5 minutes isn't long enough to fall asleep. So I don't.

It drives me crazy. Last night I could have slept 8 hours straight before Noah even woke up to nurse. But I woke up after 5 hours and lied there awake for another 3 hours before he got up. I could have slept another 2 1/2 hours after that until he got up for the day, but I couldn't get to sleep because I couldn't get comfortable.

That's 10.5 hours that I could have slept, but I only got 5 hours. Do you know how insane an insomniac gets? I should mention that when I say I got 5 hours, that's not 5 hours straight. I wake up at least every hour during that time and have to fall back asleep. You know how they say a baby's sleep cycle is 30-40 minutes and they wake up a bit after that amount of time and need to learn how to put themselves back to sleep on their own? I FULLY wake up everytime my sleep cycle restarts and I have a hard time going back to sleep. Maybe I never learned to self soothe. And no, I can't nap. Noah only naps 30-40 minutes at a time. That's not enough time for me to even fall asleep.

I used to just look forward to night time when I could go to sleep... before I was pregnant, anyway. I didn't really like the daytime, and I just looked forward to getting in bed every night and being unconscious.

Now I don't like night time at all. I like daytime. I look forward to the morning when Noah wakes up and we get to hang out for the entire day. I really enjoy my days now that I have him. I love looking forward to a new day. I don't think I've ever looked forward to everyday like I do now that I have him in my life.

I don't know how I function in such a sleep deprived state, but I do. And I still enjoy life.

Anemia

I got a call from my OB today telling me that they just got my bloodwork back and it shows that my hemoglobin is very low and I need to get on iron supplements immediately.

I gave birth 13 days ago, and they JUST got my bloodwork - bloodwork that was done while I was in the hospital - that shows that I need to be on iron supplements. I can't believe it took that long! I didn't ask for my level, but it's obviously pretty low, because my hemoglobin was already low during my pregnancy and my OB didn't want me to go on iron supplements then because of my bowel issues. I guess it's way lower now, because he's changed his tune.

So I am anemic, and I'm only getting 3-4 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. I guess this explains my weakness, my massive marathon headaches, my completely lack of energy, my sleep sweats, my shortness of breath, and maybe even my hallucinations.

This morning we tried putting Noah in his nursery from 4:30-6:00am because I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep. He is such a loud grunter (even my mom, who had 4 kids, says he's a very loud grunter), and does it all through the night while he's sleeping. And I'm a bad sleeper, so any grunting keeps me awake. By 6 he was starving so Justin got up and brought him to me (he had to get up for the day anyway) and after I nursed him I put him back to sleep in his bassinet next to me. For the next two hours I was paralyzed. I literally could not move except to occasionally lift up my head to see if all of Noah's noises were from him being awake and needing to eat, or if he was just sleeping. Half the time I couldn't even do that. I wasn't even really sleeping, except the occasional dozing. I was just unable to move.

As I lay there I was kind of freaked out. Here I was, home alone, and I felt totally incapable of caring for my child. I'm sure that if he had started crying, something in me would have broken free of my paralyzed state and I would have been able to get out of bed to pick him up. But it was really freaking me out that I was the only person around to take care of him at that time, and I could barely even lift my head to look at him. I was just thankful that my mom was coming in a couple of hours, because I honestly thought I might not be able to get out of bed before she arrived.

Hopefully being on the iron supplements will give me a bit more energy. I'm exhausted enough as it is, I don't really need anything else adding to it.


Weight Loss Update: In 12 days I lost 33 lbs. I am now 17 lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight.