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!

good news/bad news

our appointment yesterday was quite eventful! we were so excited about the chance to see our baby girl and were disappointed when we couldn't tell what in the world was going on on that screen. after swipping the happy wand across my gigantic belly a few times, the ultrasound guy says "that's a breech baby!" a few minutes later he says "that's a big baby!"

so the bad news is our big baby girl is breech. and when i say big, they are estimating 8 pounds 6 ounces which i don't think is super big, but maybe its just big because i'm such a shorty! :) i guess why the breech news is bad news is because i will be delivering by c-section. its not how i envisioned it, but God knew way back when doctors were telling me i would never have children that i would have a baby girl on march 15, 2010 and she would be delivered via c-section. He is good, all the time.

the good news is that our baby girl will be in our arms by lunch time on monday. yes, 4 days from now. monday is bella joy's auntie amanda's 25th birthday! happy quarter of a century to her, huh?! when we found out we were expecting, we joked of the idea that she may be born on amanda's birthday, but never did we think it would really happen that way!

another funny thing, yesterday i was 38 weeks, or so i thought. i promise that when the nurse at dr. d's office gave me my due date, she said it was march 24. but my chart sure does say march 27. so according to them, i'm not 38 weeks until saturday. this obviously doesn't matter even a little bit since we know we are delivering on monday, but still funny nonetheless.

please be praying on monday morning. surgery is set for 9 am. pray for adam. i know he'll be great but i'm sure he'll be nervous for me. pray for bella joy, that she is healthy and learns to nurse quickly. pray for me too, please. i am nervous, but i know that this is the plan that God had from day one and i do find peace in that.