the saddest thing i've ever seen

we saw docter fraser this morning. he suggested we try different bottles (since i'm basically exclusively pumping right now, although the hope is still to go back to nursing). anyway, we went to target in the monsoon to get some of said bottles. while there, we saw quite possibly the saddest thing i've ever seen.


these milk screening strips state that they are a "home test for alcohol in breast milk" because "every woman's metabolism is different".

so so sad. a product like this shouldn't have even needed to be created. such is life in a fallen world. so thankful its not my home.

sickness enters the jochim homestead

tuesday night was not a happy night. bella spit up, a lot, before adam got home. as the night went on, she continued to spit up (and when i say spit up, i mean more like throw up) after every feeding. we were of course freaking out. we called the after hours number at our pediatricians office. the doc on call told us to get some pedialyte and give her 2 ounces for two feedings. so we headed to kroger to get the goods. on the way back, i had to make adam stop the car in the middle of mt. lebanon rd so i could throw up! yuck!

so when we got home, adam tried to get some pedialyte in our baby girl. she didn't want a thing to do with it. so at her next feeding, we just went back to breast milk. rewind though. i continued throwing up as the night progressed. when her next feeding rolled around at 4am, i decided i would just pump so that i wouldn't throw up on her. i headed to the kitchen to get my pumping supplies and turned back toward our room. but i didn't make it there. i collapsed in the middle of our kitchen floor. adam rushed to the kitchen. i asked him to get me some sprite. so he headed to the little coke machine down the road from our house at 4am. he brought me the trash can first so i could stay on the floor. when he got back, he helped me to our room, i pumped and he fed bella. she threw up again. and then again one more time before we were finally able to call the doctor at 8am.

she threw up again last night. but we both seem to be feeling better now. we are having a super hard time getting bella to eat, whether by breast or bottle. it is very stressful. i know i am not a terrible mother, but i feel like i am when my baby won't eat! i know she is hungry! i don't know what the issue is, but i sure hope we get it figured out soon.

**did i mention that we are redoing our bathroom which means there is no toilet in there right now, so during all of the sickness, i had to go out to the garage halfbath to do my...business. that made it was more fun! :) what is fun is that hopefully by sunday, i'll be able to show pictures of our beautiful bathroom!

another first!

last night we took bella on her very first trip to pei wei! i know she is gonna love it when she gets bigger but yesterday, not so much. i took her in in her awesome (fake) moby wrap and started trying to eat my dinner while wearing her. we quickly realized she was up too high, so adam and i tried to lower her while ashmill sat and laughed. bella was getting hungry, so i nursed her in the moby wrap, or at least tried. i'm sure it was quite entertaining to anyone paying attention.

in other news, we saw the lactation consultant this morning. she didn't feel like my supply was low due to my pcos (PRAISE!) but does feel that it is low. bella's little tongue is made in a way that leads the lc to believe that it should be clipped, however our pediatrician doesn't do that. when i called his office, he said not to do it, no matter what! he said it wouldn't change our situation. so i suppose we are going with the doctors orders rather than the lc. bella was 8 lbs 9 oz at her weight check at 3 weeks. exactly 2 weeks later, she has finally surpassed her birth weight (8 lbs 15 1/2 oz) and is 9 lbs 12 oz!! go bella!!

our plan of action is a grueling one. i am supposed to feed bella every 2 hours. depending on how she nurses, i am to supplement the feeding with a bottle (whether breast milk or formula depends on our stock of breast milk). then i am to pump for at least 15 minutes to try to increase my supply. i am also taking 3 fenugreek 3 times a day. it is going to be very difficult, but if it allows us to breastfeed our baby girl, it will be so worth it! do any of you have any experience with the lactation consultant? what was your time like?

fab 5 friday

i'm joining my friends emily and jenny this week and letting you in on the little things that have made my week a little better.
1. the medela pump in style breast pump has made our nursing issues a little easier. sweet bella will take a bottle with ease, even when she won't take the breast. AND i pumped over 2 ounces in one sitting today! thats a record for us! praise God! and wahoo for the pump in style!
2. KEEN FOOTWEAR!!!!! i am probably their biggest fan! and my feet got bigger during pregnancy which made some of my keens not fit. the only thing is, these shoes can be pricey. luckily, today i discovered through some great friends, that there is a store in bowling green that has various kinds of keens for only 29.99! so i got this super fun orange pair in my new size 7!

3. church's chicken. i didn't even know we had one in bowling green. but my awesome uncle don and aunt paula came to visit us this evening and brought us the delicious fried goodness! and if i made a fab 6 and 7, it would be uncle don and aunt paula. they rock!

4. the woodland bouncey seat! what a glorious invention! bella loves this thing. she is only a month old and the batteries that make it vibrate are already dead! when we have dinner or our arms just need a rest, bella happily chills here.

5. yes, april 15 made my week better. not necessarily because it was tax day, but because bella turned 1 month old! and also one of my other most favorite people in the world turned 8! so our april 15 was filled with our growing girl and xander and his awesome momma and daddy!

yay for friday and the little things that make this imperfect world a happier place! :)

1 month old!

well, i don't know how it happened, but bella joy is already 1 month old! wahoo!!!! she is growing up so fast. the past few nights she has even gone to sleep at about 930! so exciting!

in the world of nursing, we've got some potentially sad news. because of my pcos, it is very likely that my milk supply is low. i am taking fenugreek and have an appointment scheduled with the lactation consultant on tuesday morning at 11. please pray that we are able to figure out a solution that will allow me to nurse bella until her first birthday.

happy first month of life outside the womb sweet baby girl! we love you so much!

nursing the baby blues

before i start talking about how hard it is to feed my baby, lets look at how cute she is! :) and fair warning, this post may be graffic. if you are a boy--don't read it, and if you read it, know its graffic.

so nursing is much harder (for me) than i ever expected it to be. my awesome sister has been nursing my neice for 8 months (and going strong) and has never even had a sore anything! i am so glad for her and for lylah that it has been such a smooth process, but that is not the case for everyone. i guess going into nursing, i had the mindset of "its been easy for my sister, we share a bloodline, so its bound to be easy for me!" wrong-o! in the hospital, the tube on lansinoh and i became very close friends.

but here is what has been giving me the most trouble. bella nurses great, sometimes. but then sometimes in the evenings, i'll get her to latch on, she'll do her thing for a minute, and then she will start screaming her head off. i know good and well that she is hungry! i can't understand why i can't get her to eat! just now, she nursed for 3 minutes on each side. 3 minutes! that is not enough. yet she stops to scream and won't go back to it.

so i have tried to pump. i have only been able to get about an ounce. now i know that one ounce is not enough, even if i feed her 12 times a day. 12 ounces a day isn't enough! so i tried getting larger breast shields for the pump (which may have actually helped a little). i got these little warm/cool packs that you can put on your breasts to increase milk flow and also sooth pain right after feeding. i'm taking my vitamins and drinking plenty of water.

i really just don't know what to do at this point. of course, i always come to these conclusions on a weekend so that i can't seek medical help for days!! so i'm looking for experienced momma help, please! :) i know lots of you have nursed your babies and i know that some of you have pumped exclusively. please please give me any and all advice that you have. and please tell me if you sweet babes ever did the latch on/scream 30 seconds later thing.

it is my hope and my intention to breastfeed/feed breast milk to bella joy for her first year of life. there have been lots of times in her 3 1/2 week life that i have wanted to give up. last night i was so frustrated that i told adam that i would go back to work so we could afford to buy formula. i don't want to do that! so please help!!!!

first days home

our first week(ish) at home wasn't the best. in fact, on our first day home i told adam that we should have stayed at the hospital. let me rewind though...

we went in on march 15 (monday) with the understanding that we would be dismissed on thursday march 18. when they came in wednesday morning and asked us if we wanted to go home, i was all for it! so we began doing all of our discharge paperwork. we were in no hurry. i went ahead and showered and we slowly prepared for our trek to alvaton to begin our lives as a family of three.

as soon as we got bella in the car and drove off, i started crying and i didn't stop for days! as soon as we got home, bella started crying and didn't stop for hours that night. after a few hours of her crying, we realized we had to head back into bowling green to get some rubbing alcohol for her belly button. it was magical. as soon as we started driving, she stopped crying and went to sleep. our small group was meeting, so adam suggested calling to see if we could stop by and have them pray over us. we did and they did. bella continued to sleep, so our small group leaders suggested that we stay for the study. yes, we went to small group the day we were discharged from the hospital.

when we got home from small group, bella started crying again and didn't stop until 630 the next morning. it was so bad in the middle of the night that we sure did call the nursery at the hospital and ask them what they had done with her! they asked us stupid questions like "is she hungry or dirty?" like we hadn't tried those things!

the next night was better. she only cried from 7pm to 2am. that continued for her first 2 weeks of life. my crying slowed down before that. i cried every time someone called, every time i told adam that i loved him, almost every time that she cried for the first week and a half.

there were times in those first days that i told adam that i loved bella but didn't like her very much at that moment. there were times when i told him how thankful i was for our miracle girl but that i missed him and was sad that it would never be just the two of us again. before bella arrived, i judged mothers who gave up on breastfeeding after a week or two and i judged couples who took their baby to a babysitter after a week. now those things totally make sense to me. breastfeeding is HARD! it is stressful. how do you know if your baby is getting enough!? why does she latch on and then start screaming after 30 seconds of nursing? why does it hurt so bad!? and yes, i was ready to have alone time with my husband the day we brought her home. i never thought i'd consider getting a babysitter so early in her life. when my mom and dad were here last week, adam and i left bella for about an hour just to go to lowe's and it was such a great time!

we love our baby girl dearly. we are so thankful for her and can't believe what a miracle she is! we are, however, looking forward to her sleeping normal hours so we can go to sleep at the same time and get into a routine of being a couple again.

mothers, i'm i crazy or was it this way for you too? yet-to-be-mothers, do you look at mothers or couples that do these things and think "i would never do that!"?

the day of her birth

on march 14, adam and i started our day in worship and then serving our sweet kindergarten kiddos. then we came home to finish preparing our house for the arrival of our baby girl. we went to bed early and snuggled and prayed and didn't sleep tons, but more than we thought we would.

on the morning of march 15, we woke up early and got ready quickly. we were at the hospital by 7:10 (we didn't have to be there until 7:30 :)). our awesome nurse began preparations. they gave me my iv, catheter, and shaved my belly where the incision would be. then we waited. mom, dad and lara all came in to visit. then mark, sally, amanda, and cory. then i got super nauseous and weird feeling, so mom and dad came back in. before we knew it, our nurse and anesthesiologist came in and said it was time to head to surgery. it went so fast! as soon as we got into the operating room, the anesthesiologist did his thing. i was terrified of the spinal, but he was phenomenal! i didn't feel a thing and the spinal took effect IMMEDIATELY! they pinned up the blue curtain and doctor davis came in. they told me that dr. d was pinching me pretty hard and i wasn't moving and that was a good thing! then dr. d got to work. shortly after, they let adam come into the room. he came immediately to my side and held my hand and talked to me through the whole thing. as the team progressed further into surgery, we heard them say "there's a butt and that's a big butt!" then they said "there's a leg!" finally we heard "we've got a head!" and then we heard sweet bella joy's first cry!! we looked at each other and smiled and cried. finally doctor davis brought our baby girl over and we saw her for the first time.
we looked at each other and smiled and cried some more. they had adam come over and watch them clean her up a little and then handed her to him. he brought her over to me and unstrapped my arm. we looked at her, i touched her for the first time, and we smiled and cried some more. eventually they took my husband and baby girl away from me and finished the surgery. then they made me go to recovery for a whole hour!

when i was in recovery, i remember not being able to feel my legs. i kept trying so hard to move them and when i couldn't, i just laughed to myself. i think they recovery room staff probably thought i was crazy :)! after my hour in recovery was over, some kid came and handed me two photos of bella and wheeled me down the hall. i saw the whole clan standing waiting for me and they followed me to our room. i finally got to hold my baby girl for the first time. we did skin to skin and i nursed her for the first time. it was so surreal. this sweet baby that i had been dreaming about for the 9 months that i carried her, and even before that, was finally here and in my arms.

our God is so good. adam and i are so thankful that he chose us to be bella's momma and daddy. it already isn't easy, but boy is it worth it! even when she screams for 6 hours straight for no apparent reason, we are praising Jesus for her.

there is more to come on our first days home.

Jesus is risen, He is risen indeed!

We are so thankful for Christ's sacrifice. And so thankful that He is alive today (and everyday)!!

Happy Easter from the Jochims :)

baby wearing

a few weeks ago my sister called me and said "if i learn how to make a moby wrap, do you want one?" i had no idea what she was talking about, but i'm glad i said yes! now we are wearing our babies together and it is so much fun!

don't we look like we should be baby-wearing models in this one!?
bella loved it!

she had been crying right before this and as soon as we got her in, she conked out.

look how sweet :)

she is even smiling in this picture!!! love her.

***these babies are super simple to make, but i don't want to tell you. if you are having a baby (ie. brittney jones or amanda (chandler) hughes) please do not attempt to find out how to do this! :)

she's here

well, we have internet at our house, so our blog will continue! here is a sweet picture of our girl taken today.

very soon i will post about the day of her birth, our first week at home, etc. we are in love!