Paternity Leave, Yeah Right
Pre-birth James and I had talked about how lucky we are to have him have an alternative schedule and some PTO saved up so that he had almost 3 weeks off work after the birth. It was going to be different than the shit show difficult experience that was after Bee was born.
Editors Note: Our tiny little red head is nicknamed the redheaded fox because of a red stuffed fox that I picked out before we went in for our implantation for our second child. Since this blog is a public blog I don't use my children's real names, just nicknames, so our little boy is going to be the Fox on here just like our daughter's real name isn't Bee. So we have a Bee and a Fox in our little menagerie.
So we talked about how when James was off for the 3 weeks after the birth that he would entertain our two year old while I snuggled our newborn son because he was going to be a snuggler since his sister was not. James would help me at night some as we embarked on our second attempt at a positive breastfeeding experience. My pediatrician assured us we only had a 15% chance of the tiny Fox having the milk protein and reflux problems that Bee had so we were positive that this wouldn't happen. I wouldn't have to survive on chicken and air for months on end. Our friends were already lining up to bring us food and they would come to meet our new addition.We would start Baby Wise early and the results would be amazing. HA. This is our life. Not a pipe dream.
We came home from the hospital and did the first couple days like a well oiled machine. Bee was with grandparents for the first couple nights which helped us keep our heads above water. A few days after we came home James started to complain about being exhausted. I called him a baby and told him to man up and caff up. He started taking a few extra naps which was just confusing for me. James routinely works night shifts and runs on 4-5 hours of broken sleep. A couple days later James was spiking a fever and sweating profusely which earned him quarantine in the nursery (which had our guest bed still in it and the baby was in our room.) I took care of both kids and tried to hang onto my sanity by a thin thread. My mom came over and cooked us a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner that James looked at as he passed by. I went from concerned to absolutely worried. I begged him to go to urgent care. There were none open and James didn't feel he needed to go to the ER. I was so exhausted and drained that I started crying every time after James would stumble back into his den of germs. James headed into urgent care the day after Thanksgiving and came home with a diagnosis of bacterial pnumonia. We were both shocked and alarmed. Since its highly contagious James headed back to the nursery with his meds to cough, moan and feel like dying by himself. Whenever he did come out a haze of lysol followed him. Anyone dropping of food didn't come past the entryway. Bee watched her very first movie and her screen time increased ten fold. I ceased to care about showering, eating or cleaning.
Meanwhile, our little disgruntle Fox started to descend into the land of misery and vomiting. Thrashing, crying, vomiting and spitting up turned up at every feeding. I changed clothes, swaddles, and burp clothes at almost every feeding. Trying to get him to sleep in his bassinet was an epic fail and he would only sleep in is swing. Again, another child in the freaking swing. Our couch has odd stains and smells like milk. I care not. Thankfully we often ship Bee out the door to a grandparents house to play because she nearly loses her mind being shut in the house. After three days James is no longer contagious but has very little energy and needs frequent naps. Much like our newborn. He is at least able to keep Bee from burning down my life while I struggle to feed her brother. The whole house goes to bed at 8 pm to try to get some sleep. James spends lots of time trying to sleep but unable to because of chills. I spend lots of time trying to sleep but unable to because my baby is grunting, crying or throwing up on himself in his sleep.
Now this was all fun and games until Mommy started to feel under the weather. A little sore throat, a little runny nose and a whole lotta coughing. Its a fine and good when you can cough by yourself saturated in your own misery but when you have a newborn sleeping 5 feet from you who you've just worked very hard to put to sleep you'd rather smother yourself than cough. I spend my nights coughing into a pillow, under the covers, maxed out on cough syrup with a cough drop glued to the top of my mouth. Sometimes the cough is so bad I go into the living room to hack to my hearts content. After 8 days the cough is still wrecking my sanity and James is on high alert that I'm going to contract his disease that I ship myself off to the clinic. They tell me I have bronchitis and announce that I can have no good meds because I'm breast feeding. These are troubling words to a very sick Mommy. I wrestle an inhaler and some good cough syrup out of them. I head home to med up. It takes a few days but I start to get better thank the good Lord.
During all of this we take frequent trips to our pediatrician. Bee needs to be assured every time she sees the building that she will not be the one on the table. It soothes her crying heart that her brother gets to see the doctor, not her. We try one reflux medicine and it doesn't seem to work. We switch to another and it makes the Fox projectile vomit. The doctor tells me to start cutting things out of my diet to help with the painful gut and mucus filled diapers. In a desperate attempt to help the situation as my body detoxed off dairy I pull out a can of Bee's liquid gold formula to see if it would help. Nope, it also makes the Fox vomit so hard that he could not be put down for hours.After trying the formula twice and having the same result I wanted to burn the can. Breast milk all the way. All my plans for getting him on a schedule are thrown out of wack and I try not to let my Type A soul be crushed when the Fox screams every hour on the hour. We end up switching him back to the first reflux med and cutting diary, soy, eggs, peanuts and seafood out of my diet. Its a joy to surviving on bread and water. I admit to glaring at Fox when I had to kiss my daily soy lattes good bye. I also cried because I had a 20 bags of frozen pumped milk which he could no longer eat. I boxed it up and sent it to my Mom's to go in her deep freeze for hopeful use later. So if you've wondered why you haven't seen me or my infant out and about, this is why.
Little by little things have been improving though. James (who is on the mend but still has a cough) is back at work of course and I've been surviving while he's been gone. The vomiting is almost gone completely, the spitting up is under control and he's a lot quieter in his sleep. He's also not vomiting in his sleep anymore so I felt confident enough to move him into his own room. He still hates to eat and doesn't want to eat much each feeding. I don't know how long we'll struggle with that. He's also not a great napper but does decent most nights. I'm slowly working him back onto a schedule in hopes that it will stick now that he's feeling a bit better. Things are looking up over here but needless to say James' paternity leave wasn't the things that dreams were made of but we're grateful he had the paid time off work and that we're all relatively healthy for the holidays!
Editors Note: Our tiny little red head is nicknamed the redheaded fox because of a red stuffed fox that I picked out before we went in for our implantation for our second child. Since this blog is a public blog I don't use my children's real names, just nicknames, so our little boy is going to be the Fox on here just like our daughter's real name isn't Bee. So we have a Bee and a Fox in our little menagerie.
So we talked about how when James was off for the 3 weeks after the birth that he would entertain our two year old while I snuggled our newborn son because he was going to be a snuggler since his sister was not. James would help me at night some as we embarked on our second attempt at a positive breastfeeding experience. My pediatrician assured us we only had a 15% chance of the tiny Fox having the milk protein and reflux problems that Bee had so we were positive that this wouldn't happen. I wouldn't have to survive on chicken and air for months on end. Our friends were already lining up to bring us food and they would come to meet our new addition.We would start Baby Wise early and the results would be amazing. HA. This is our life. Not a pipe dream.
We came home from the hospital and did the first couple days like a well oiled machine. Bee was with grandparents for the first couple nights which helped us keep our heads above water. A few days after we came home James started to complain about being exhausted. I called him a baby and told him to man up and caff up. He started taking a few extra naps which was just confusing for me. James routinely works night shifts and runs on 4-5 hours of broken sleep. A couple days later James was spiking a fever and sweating profusely which earned him quarantine in the nursery (which had our guest bed still in it and the baby was in our room.) I took care of both kids and tried to hang onto my sanity by a thin thread. My mom came over and cooked us a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner that James looked at as he passed by. I went from concerned to absolutely worried. I begged him to go to urgent care. There were none open and James didn't feel he needed to go to the ER. I was so exhausted and drained that I started crying every time after James would stumble back into his den of germs. James headed into urgent care the day after Thanksgiving and came home with a diagnosis of bacterial pnumonia. We were both shocked and alarmed. Since its highly contagious James headed back to the nursery with his meds to cough, moan and feel like dying by himself. Whenever he did come out a haze of lysol followed him. Anyone dropping of food didn't come past the entryway. Bee watched her very first movie and her screen time increased ten fold. I ceased to care about showering, eating or cleaning.
Meanwhile, our little disgruntle Fox started to descend into the land of misery and vomiting. Thrashing, crying, vomiting and spitting up turned up at every feeding. I changed clothes, swaddles, and burp clothes at almost every feeding. Trying to get him to sleep in his bassinet was an epic fail and he would only sleep in is swing. Again, another child in the freaking swing. Our couch has odd stains and smells like milk. I care not. Thankfully we often ship Bee out the door to a grandparents house to play because she nearly loses her mind being shut in the house. After three days James is no longer contagious but has very little energy and needs frequent naps. Much like our newborn. He is at least able to keep Bee from burning down my life while I struggle to feed her brother. The whole house goes to bed at 8 pm to try to get some sleep. James spends lots of time trying to sleep but unable to because of chills. I spend lots of time trying to sleep but unable to because my baby is grunting, crying or throwing up on himself in his sleep.
Now this was all fun and games until Mommy started to feel under the weather. A little sore throat, a little runny nose and a whole lotta coughing. Its a fine and good when you can cough by yourself saturated in your own misery but when you have a newborn sleeping 5 feet from you who you've just worked very hard to put to sleep you'd rather smother yourself than cough. I spend my nights coughing into a pillow, under the covers, maxed out on cough syrup with a cough drop glued to the top of my mouth. Sometimes the cough is so bad I go into the living room to hack to my hearts content. After 8 days the cough is still wrecking my sanity and James is on high alert that I'm going to contract his disease that I ship myself off to the clinic. They tell me I have bronchitis and announce that I can have no good meds because I'm breast feeding. These are troubling words to a very sick Mommy. I wrestle an inhaler and some good cough syrup out of them. I head home to med up. It takes a few days but I start to get better thank the good Lord.
During all of this we take frequent trips to our pediatrician. Bee needs to be assured every time she sees the building that she will not be the one on the table. It soothes her crying heart that her brother gets to see the doctor, not her. We try one reflux medicine and it doesn't seem to work. We switch to another and it makes the Fox projectile vomit. The doctor tells me to start cutting things out of my diet to help with the painful gut and mucus filled diapers. In a desperate attempt to help the situation as my body detoxed off dairy I pull out a can of Bee's liquid gold formula to see if it would help. Nope, it also makes the Fox vomit so hard that he could not be put down for hours.After trying the formula twice and having the same result I wanted to burn the can. Breast milk all the way. All my plans for getting him on a schedule are thrown out of wack and I try not to let my Type A soul be crushed when the Fox screams every hour on the hour. We end up switching him back to the first reflux med and cutting diary, soy, eggs, peanuts and seafood out of my diet. Its a joy to surviving on bread and water. I admit to glaring at Fox when I had to kiss my daily soy lattes good bye. I also cried because I had a 20 bags of frozen pumped milk which he could no longer eat. I boxed it up and sent it to my Mom's to go in her deep freeze for hopeful use later. So if you've wondered why you haven't seen me or my infant out and about, this is why.
Little by little things have been improving though. James (who is on the mend but still has a cough) is back at work of course and I've been surviving while he's been gone. The vomiting is almost gone completely, the spitting up is under control and he's a lot quieter in his sleep. He's also not vomiting in his sleep anymore so I felt confident enough to move him into his own room. He still hates to eat and doesn't want to eat much each feeding. I don't know how long we'll struggle with that. He's also not a great napper but does decent most nights. I'm slowly working him back onto a schedule in hopes that it will stick now that he's feeling a bit better. Things are looking up over here but needless to say James' paternity leave wasn't the things that dreams were made of but we're grateful he had the paid time off work and that we're all relatively healthy for the holidays!
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