The Mommy Wars

I breastfed Isla for nearly two years and hope to go at least as long with Ruby.  We use disposable diapers.  I make our own baby food and we don’t start solids until six months old.  Isla had ice cream for lunch the other day.  I baby wear.  Our babies sleep in their own beds in our room until they sleep through the night.  We sleep trained Isla when she was six months, and will do the same with Ruby if we need to.  Isla is still rear-facing in her car seat at 2.5 years.  Sometimes we give her the iPod to play with just so we can make her be quiet.

Have you labeled me yet?  Judged me for any of those choices?

If you have spent any time with any other moms lately, you know that most of these are hot-topic issues.  And if you’ve spent any time in any kind of online parenting forum, group, website or blog, you know these issues can bring out some terrible name-calling, judgments and just a lot of junk.

I’m in a breastfeeding support group on facebook.  The ladies are amazingly kind and supportive.  When I was discouraged with some feeding issues Ruby was having, they were quick to jump to my aide and encourage the mess out of me.  And yet at the same time, other posts pop up that are so judgmental and mean, tearing down other parents for the decisions that they make.

I’ll admit, I’ve made my fair share of judgments.  Even though it’s only in my mind and not something I would ever say out loud, I’ve judged.  But deep down, I know that these parents I’m secretly judging really love their kids and are doing their darndest to make the best decisions that they can for their families.  Formula vs. breast, sleep training and parenting styles are definitely not something I am willing to fight with other mamas about.  Being a mom is hard enough without having to feel like you have to defend every choice you make.

I’m sure many of you have seen this blog post already… as it currently has 29,000 likes on facebook (mine included! :))… but I wanted to post it here because it is awesome.  Powerful.  And so very true.  It’s one of those posts that you read and you go, “yes, that is exactly what I’ve been thinking but didn’t quite know it and never could have said it so well.”  If you haven’t read it yet, read it now:

“When it comes to issues of motherhood, there is one issue I care about: some kids don’t have one.”

And then I hope you seriously consider what you can do about it.  If you are interested in an organization to support that helps at-risk kids, I have a long list of people/orgs that I am personally aware besides our own girls’ home that I’m happy to pass along! :)

Tags: at-risk children, orphan, parenting

Family Photo-taking 101

When this is the best picture you can get, you know there is a story behind it..

First of all, Isla has decided that she hates getting her picture taken.  So most of my pictures of her look like this:

But I tricked her into sitting on her daddy’s lap so that I could try to get a picture of her and Ruby in their matching outfits.  Problem was she noticed right away that they were matching…

…and she has this funny habit of “cheers”-ing any things she sees that match.  (Two cups – clink them together and say cheers.  Two pink markers – clink them together and say cheers.  Two yellow fish shirts………..)

But she got a little overzealous with her “cheers”…

So our family photo taking session was quickly ended.

Tags: isla, ruby

One month!

Tags: ruby, ruby by the month

Sleep when the baby (and toddler) sleep….

This is why the blog has been a bit slow since we finally got home from the hospital  :)

Quick Ruby update:  we went in for another blood test on Friday and her levels were the same as when we left the hospital on Wednesday.  We’d hoped they would have gone down a bit, but as long as the remain stable, things are okay for now.  We head in again tomorrow to see the doctor and get Ruby checked out to make sure she’s doing okay.  We are so enjoying being home and getting to know this new little gal without all the heel pricks and blue lights and temperature checks and all that fun hospital stuff!  :)

Tags: baby, newborn, ruby, sleep

Bedtime story…

After 9 nights in the hospital, 22 heel pricks, one IV, one big blood draw, one catheter, lots of tears and even more waiting, we finally get to read our bedtime story from home tonight!

Ruby’s levels still aren’t dropping like they should be.  For the past 48 hours they’ve been going up and down by a few tenths of a point every 8 hours or so.  But they aren’t high enough to go back under the lights, just not stable and going down.  So the doctor (finally!) decided that we might as well wait it out at home instead of in the hospital.  She doesn’t expect them to get dangerously high again, but just in case we’ll go back in Friday morning to re-check her levels and make sure they haven’t sky-rocketed again.

Thanks so much for your support and prayers… please keep praying with us that her levels will have at least stayed the same on Friday… even better that they will have decreased!

And now, to get a good night’s sleep in my own bed…. at least as good of a sleep you can get with a hungry newborn in the house!!

Tags: ruby

Just kidding

3:00 blood test Ruby’s levels had gone up again.  It makes no sense.  We’re still in the hospital until….????

We’ll have another test at 9pm and see what happens from there.

Tags: bilirubin, jaundice, ruby

Finally some good news!

Ruby’s levels were continuing to climb, so she went back under the lights on Sunday night for 24 hours.

In the meantime all of the test results were coming back negative… no infections, no thyroid problems, liver seems to be working fine…. all that was good news!

Then last night they re-tested her blood and her levels had dropped significantly – as to be expected after being under phototherapy again.

There is generally a bit of a rebound after coming out from under the lights.  If her levels go up a point or two and then stay steady or start dropping, it’s a sign that her body is finally processing the bilirubin well enough for us to go home.  After her first blood test this morning, her level had actually dropped – no sign of a rebound so far!  It wasn’t much, just 0.1 of a point, but a drop nonetheless!  We still haven’t seen the doctor yet, just have a really helpful nurse who looked up the results for us.  No one is really sure what the next step is… probably another blood test this afternoon (hopefully sooner than later!) and as long as her level hasn’t gone up, we should be free!!!

Whoo hoo for a shower, sleeping in my own bed and eating something other than take-out….. and for finally heading home and figuring out how this whole family-of-4 thing works!!!!

Tags: bilirubin, jaundice, ruby