Finally Saturday!

This week was so stinking long! After having to work over seventeen hours last Saturday and then being sick on Tuesday, I didn't know what day was what. Luckily it is over. Now I'm not entirely looking forward to next week either. I have three late shifts which I hate! But two good things though. I was supposed to take BLS (basic life support) on Thursday night - Thursday being the only regular day I work - but one of my coworkers took pity on me. She is part time and is going to come in for me on Tuesday afternoon so I can leave for a couple of hours and take the class then. I am so happy about that! That was so nice of her and I appreciate it so much. The other good thing is that I have Wednesday off so we can go get Jake's six month pictures taken by the really good, really expensive photographer. The week after that I don't think I have a single late shift. Yippee!!



My chest hurts and I have a terrible cough. It is different than I usually get though. I'm still a bit worried about it but I feel fine otherwise. I just feel like I am on the edge of an asthma attack, but none comes. I'm not complaining about that. It does seem to both irritate and concern Jake however. If he is eating than it disturbs him and he doesn't like that. If I am holding him or he is sitting near me he gives me or Mike a very concerned look.



Speaking of sitting, he is doing so well!!! You can see by the pictures. He is just beginning to fall in the picture with the fish in his mouth. His very favorite toy right now is his tongue. He loves to play with it. He sticks it out and rolls it up. He sprays spit or baby food every where with it. He just loves to see what he can do with it. He even licks you. I took him to a meeting at work with me on Friday and he was great entertainment with his tongue activities.



I am dreading the time change. I guess that is a good thing about having all the late shifts. I guess we can use them to ease ourselves in a bit more. It is just so hard for me to get up now in the mornings! Jake has been getting up a lot so that doesn't help but no matter how you look at it 415 is early.



This week I have toiled a lot over breast feeding. I have been having a lot of pain in my face around my left eye. I don't remember if I have posted this or not. The MRI that was done at the end of December showed that there was still an unusual amount of swelling on my facial nerve. I was put on a pretty good dose of steroids for fifteen days. That seemed to cut my milk supply in half. That was pretty emotional for me. I suddenly hardly had any milk to put in the freezer and I for the first time I didn't always have enough if I had Jake for the entire day. I would have to give him frozen milk. He still doesn't take a bottle from me very well. He has no problem if Mike gives him one and Mike never even has to touch it aside from hand it to him and take it when he is done. Not the case for Mommy however. Interesting... So a recommended treatment for the spasticity and pain I am having around my eye is to have bo.t.ox injected in my forehead and around my eye. Supposedly, my insurance will pay for it. So I said what about the the other side because I already know you look stupid with half your face paralyzed. Insurance won't pay for you to be symmetrical in this instance. But I can't get the injections and still nurse. Right now my doctor is supposed to be talking with a special pain doctor to see if there is something else that should be tried instead. I'm pretty sure I am just getting handed over to that practice, but I haven't officially been told that. So what do I do? Here I am struggling to try to increase my milk supply. I feel ready to stop, but the doctor wants me to keep going with Jake as long as I absolutely can. I decided I would try to make it through the end of the month. That will put Jake at seven months old. Hopefully he will continue to be doing better about eating baby food. I'm just not sure how to go about starting him on formula. I asked the doctor what formula she wanted me to start with when he did start needing formula and she wants us to go with soy. It upset his tummy before when we were doing soy and breast milk and we had to change. Of course his life was measured in days then. I don't want to have to mess with trying a dozen different kinds of formula! That is why I AM still breast feeding. The funny thing to me is that my husband seems to have strong feelings on the matter. Maybe it is just because he doesn't want to have to help with the bottles more, but he doesn't want me to stop. Maybe it is because I made such a stink about how important it was when we were struggling in the early days. He knew my goal was to make it six months though. I guess I will see what the doctors come up with for me and I will go from there, if I still have any milk left by then!