Our Cloth Adventure!

This past weekend we (well, I) finally started using cloth diapers on Ivy. I had planned on doing it from the start but with everything else going on it was just too much. Now that things are settling down I am getting to it. Some of you know that I also used cloth diapers on Lily. I was frugal then and just used prefold and covers. That is just a rectangular piece of cotton cloth with a bunch of padding in the middle that you lay inside a waterproof cover. I really didn't know that there were any other types of cloth diapers until a couple years ago. Oh my goodness it is so overwhelming!!! I decided to wait to purchase a bunch until Ivy was here so I could figure out what works best for her. I have found that the prefolds are just too bulky. My sweet friend Angie gave me some super cute "fitted" diapers which you put on just like a disposable but using velcro and then put a cover on them. (She also made some fun printed diaper covers with matching shirts. The covers fit great but the tops are a little big. I can't wait until Ivy can fit them!!!) ...back to the fitteds......So of course I have to find more because they are working great. They also have diapers that are super cute that you don't need to put a cover on. These are called "All in Ones." Well, now I am obsessed. I won't even tell you how many I have purchased or am planning on purchasing this week! It is crazy! But it will still be cheaper than disposables in the end! I have been looking for deals and buying some used so that is keeping the cost down. I will probably get a few more before my spending spree is done and then we will be set for a while. I am pretty sure Ivy is going to want more cloth diapers for Christmas though!
Just had to share...oh, and if you have used cloth diapers and have a brand you want to recommend please do so!!!

An update..finally!

It's been a while since I posted here. Miss Lillian turned 9 years old a couple of weeks ago. She is growing up so fast. In a couple of weeks she will be a big old fourth grader! The time has flown by. She is just an awesome kid and I love her so much!

Today Ivy went up to the hospital for another adjustment to her NAM. The doc says everything looks great. Ivy did so well! She basically slept through the whole appointment. I was wearing her in the pouch and she was sleeping. I put her down on the little table thing and the doc took her NAM out and looked in her mouth with his Q-tips. She didn't love that but as soon as he was done I picked her up and bounced with her and she fell asleep. When the doc was finished with the adjustment I put her back down and she barely peeped her eyes open when he put the NAM back in. So that was fabulous. Usually there are some big tears for this appointment. The doc informed me that next week when she goes in for her adjustment, he will put in her nasal stint. That is a small ball that will be attached to her NAM and go up into her nose. It will help shape the cartilage in her left nostril to be more rounded. I am interested to see what that will look like and interested to see how that will affect how we do things with Ivy. Hopefully it won't be too much different but we will see.

Ok....that's about enough for now. I am sure I will have more to say soon.

Peep show

I thought many of you might get a kick out of this...
I wanted to make sure to pump today right before Ivy's appointment since I knew we would be in there about 3 hours. So instead of bringing my manual pump in the car with me I decieded to bring my electric pump with a car adapter. This way I could make sure to really drain the milk so that I could last longer before the next pump. We ended up being really early for the appointment so we pulled off onto the side of the road at this scenic pull out spot on the way to Doernbecher. I put a balanket in the window facing traffic and started the process. I took off my shirt and took of my bra. I lowered my cami and put on my fabulous hands free pumping bra. If you have never seen one of these you should google it....they are funny looking but oh so handy! While I am getting this all ready, Chris take Ivy out of the carseat and is walking around outside. As I am putting the hands free bra on I see Chris walk by the car....only it wasn't Chris....Oops! I think this innocent man talking a walk up the hill got an eyefull of my breasts in my fab hands free bra! Needless to say I was a little more careful after that!!!

Hearing Test

Today we went back over to Doernbecher for another hearing test. This is the third time we have been there for her hearing so I was kind of expecting her to have a hearing loss. She failed her first newborn hearing test due to excess fluid in her ears. So a few weeks later we had to go in for an Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) test. We were instructed to postpone a feeding and nap so she would be super hungry and tired. Despite this, it took a while for her to fall asleep. Once she was asleep the test could being. The audiologist, who is awesome, put little electrodes on Ivy's earlobes, her forehead and right shoulder. Then they put little earphones in her ears and send various sounds and different frequencies and decibels in to her ears. The test measures how her cochlea, auditory nerve and brainstem respond to the sounds. The results of the first test indicated that she may have a mild hearing loss in the right ear and the reading in the left ear was not clear enough to give a good results so we would have to come back when Ivy was older and hopefully the fluid in her ears would be gone and her system would be more mature. We were there about 4 hours for that visit.
Today we went back for the second ABR. Ivy was much more sleepy this time so she was asleep within ten minutes of getting in the room. This is after she projectile vomited all over Chris in the waiting room...that was fun. This time the audiologist was able to get clearer pictures and therefore more accurate results. After holding a sleeping Ivy for 3 hours the audiologist told us that Ivy appears to have normal hearing in her right ear and close to normal hearing in her left ear! She was also able to redo one of the original tests that Ivy had failed at her newborn screening and the results were normal. The audiologist was really happy with the results.
It is a great thing because with Ivy's cleft palate, her speech development may be delayed. So at least we can rule out a hearing loss when we are looking into her speech development.

Feeding Ivy

So since I feel like pumping is such a huge part of my life right now I thought I would blog about it. Ivy's cleft palate makes it impossible for her to have the suction needed for breastfeeding and even for traditional nipples on bottles. When she was born we really didn't know the extent of her cleft and thought maybe it was just the lip. After we got out of the birthing tub Ivy and I spent some time cuddling and her instincts went right to work trying to find my breast. With the help of my midwife we figured out the best position for her to be in to latch onto my breast. She was able to form a seal with her lips and suckle a bit. It was great to be able to have that bonding time with her. After a while it was time for her to get checked out by the midwife. It was then during a more thorough examination of her mouth that the midwife told me that her she has a complete cleft palate which mean even though she could latch on, she would not be able to suck and therefore I would not be able to breastfeed her. It was a pretty hard blow. Honestly it was the hardest piece of her having the cleft. That may sound weird but it was. She is strong and will make it through all of the stuff she will need to go through...I have no doubt about that. I really wasn't sad about the cleft. Ivy is exactly who she was meant to be and I wouldn't change that. But I was devastated to not be able to breastfeed her because of the closeness nursing brings and all of those sweet moments when your baby is at your breast.



Even though Ivy can't breastfeed doesn't mean she can't have all the benefits of breast milk. So I have been exclusively pumping since the day Ivy was born. About an hour or two after Ivy was born my mom rushed off to buy me a pump. That evening I began pumping. Oh my what an experience this has been. The first few days were really hard because I was just getting literally drips of colostrum out. It wasn't enough to feed her with any type of bottle so Chris and I would catch the drips in our fingers and dribble it into Ivy's mouth. Each time I pumped I got a tiny bit more. Chris went home that night and rearranged the house to fit Ivy's needs a bit better. He moved our dresser into the hall and then moved the rocking chair into our room and put a table next to it for my pump. That way I had a comfortable place to pump and we also had a comfortable place to sit and feed Ivy in the middle of the night. When she was about 24 hours old the nurse came to our house for Ivy's one day check up and brought us a syringe with a tiny tube attached. So for that day and night we would suck as much of the colostrum up into the syringe as we could. I can remember a few times losing a few drops onto the floor and I would cry. Every drop was so precious to me and I wanted her to get everything she could. It took both Chris and I to feed her those first three days. We were super tired. Finally, Monday morning my milk started to come in and I was able to get an ounce or so.



We still didn't understand how to use the special bottles we were given so we continued to use the syringe method. That afternoon we went up to Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland to meet with Ivy's Cleft Team. One of the people we met with was Lisa, the feeding specialist. She was able to help us feed Ivy with the Haberman Special Needs nipple. With her help, Ivy ate like a little champ! We finally had a way to feed her that we felt good about and most importantly, could be done by just one person!

I started doing a lot of research about exclusively pumping breast milk. I had to quickly learn about how to establish a healthy milk supply, how to store the milk and we have to buy all the supplies we would need to make it work. I learned that in order to establish my milk supply I would need to pump 8-10 times a day for 20-30 minutes! That's up to 300 minutes a day of pumping. And that's on top of having to feed and diaper and snuggle my newborn plus take care of myself. I had some major tearing that I will maybe get into at a different time but the short story is that I had to soak in a tub for 30 minutes 3 times a day and rest a lot. I was tired and in a crap load of pain but I did it. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that it would get better...and then it got worse. By the fifth day I was in a severe amount of pain due to my physical healing or lack there of. I cried a lot and laid around a lot. I thought about giving up the pumping. At that point having to pump 10 times a day while dealing with everything just seemed overwhelming but I knew that if I quit I would feel so incredibly guilty when I felt physically better. So I decided that making a decision like that was something I couldn't do at that time and I just stayed determined and knew that at some point I would start to feel better and I knew that the pain couldn't last. So I stuck it out. I am so happy that I did.
By the time Ivy was three weeks old, I was feeling better physically. I was still pumping 8-10 times a day and was getting enough milk to feed Ivy and freeze some for later. It was also around this time that we started getting more active as a family and I was losing track of how many times I was pumping and I was wondering if I was establishing a healthy supply for Ivy. I had read that it is very important to continue to pump 8-10 times a day for the first 12 weeks to do this. Ugh...really? Yes, really. Then around that time I should be able to drop to four pumps a day and still maintain my milk supply. So when Ivy was a month old I started documenting when I pump and how much milk I got. In the last 21 days I have pumped 600 ounces of milk. I have a pretty healthy stash in the freezer and Ivy is eating and gaining weight like a champ! She has gained almost 2 pounds in 6 weeks!
My goal is to pump breast milk for Ivy for at least a year. It sounds like a really long time but I am sure I can do it. She will have to undergo two surgeries in the next year and I want her to be as healthy as possible. She will be in and out of the hospital (our visit tomorrow will be our fifth already) and I want her to have the immunities that breast milk provides and she will also be prone to ear infections so in her case I just feel that breast milk is that much more important for her.
So now I feel like a broken record..."I have to pump" is my new saying. And if I am not pumping right now, I have either just finished pumping or it is time for me to pump again. I feel like I am attached to the [ump even when I am not physically attached to the pump. I have to plan trips around pumping. I have to pump before I leave and if I won't be back before the next time I need to pump then I take a manual pump with me and I pump in the car on the way
to and from appointments and events. I always wonder if anyone has peeked into the back seat and been able to catch a view of this site. I haven't got any honks yet so I must be covering enough!
Well, there is a little peek into our world. I didn't realize I had this much to say about it but I guess I did.