Weekend to End Women's Cancers

My friend who is doing the Weekend to End Women's Cancers with me came over today to discuss our fundraising efforts. We've decided to hold a Jack & Jill type fundraiser. We'll sell tickets and then people can come play games, drink booze, have some snacks and buy tickets for door prizes. We're going to host a few of those at home parties so that we can use the host dollars to buy items for the door prizes.

I'm very excited about this. Planning these things will give me something to look forward to and work towards. It's nice to have something like that sometimes, you know? Not that being on maternity leave isn't rewarding on its own, of course. I love spending time with my little boy and I am not looking forward to my maternity leave ending. I also have never liked working for a living and I feel like being a Mom is what I was made to do. But it's also nice to have something that is just yours. That you're doing for yourself because you enjoy it, not because someone else wants you to, or because someone is paying you to.

It's funny how when you first have a baby you feel completely overwhelmed, wonder how it's possible that anyone chooses to do this and more importantly, why you chose to do this! But it doesn't take long to get yourself into a groove and realize that you really can do this. Eventually you get to go back to your normal self and you get to do things for yourself, which previously seemed impossible. I think it's important to start to do things for yourself as soon as it is reasonable to do so after you have a baby.

Update on Crib Transition

Pierce has been sleeping so well in his crib by himself! It makes me a little sad that my little boy is ready to be so independent so soon.

He had a good 30 minute morning nap in his crib yesterday and his afternoon nap was at least 1.5 hours! That hasn't happened since he was a newborn, I couldn't believe it. Of course, he was up a lot later than he normally is. He went down for the night between 6:30 and 7:00 and was up once to eat at 2:00 a.m. and then up for the day around 7:00 a.m.

I think the reason he's doing so well is because it's so dark in there. He really likes it nice and dark when he sleeps, just like his Momma. I was looking forward to him sleeping in a bit later since he's on the West side of the house so it would be extra dark, but he woke up earlier than usual.

I will admit that this has been quite hard on me, though. As much as I think that it's great that he's taken the transition so well, I miss being able to just look over and see him sleeping there. It took me a very long time to fall asleep last night both when I went to bed for the night and after I put him back down after he woke up to eat. Pierce is a swaddle addict and he likes to be swaddled nice and tight and I worry that he's going to roll over, not be able to push himself up to breathe and suffocate himself. I know that the chances of that happening are very slim and I'm probably just being an overly worried first time mom, but not being able to look over at him or even hear him breathing is really hard on me.

I want to start weaning Pierce from the swaddle because I think that will ease my mind a bit more, but he's such a swaddle-aholic that I don't know if I want to go through the impending horrible nights of sleep by doing that. And I am not interested in any form of cry-it-out methods of sleep training. Although perhaps I will take a look at The No-Cry Sleep Solution, I've heard that's a good method. I know some parents start by leaving one of their child's arms out of the swaddle and some just go cold turkey, but I don't know if Pierce is ready for either of those options. If anyone has any tips on how to wean Pierce from the swaddle, I'd certainly welcome them.

Transitioning to Crib

We've begun transitioning Pierce to his own bedroom in his crib. This makes me sad and excited at the same time. He turned 5 months earlier this month and I think it's time that he slept on his own. Even though I would love to have him in the bed with us, Mr. B just doesn't feel that it's safe and Pierce sleeps better on his own anyways. I think it's more important that we all sleep well.

Pierce had a late nap yesterday since I couldn't get him to nap at his usual time so he didn't end up going to bed until 6:30 or 7:00! Usually he's more than ready for bed by 5:00. We swaddled him and put him down in his crib, but he was awake and crying within 5 minutes, so we moved him back to our room and he was fine. I have to admit I wasn't too disappointed when it didn't work right away. After I left his room and closed the door I hung out there a little bit and seriously contemplated sleeping on the floor outside his room. I definitely think that giving our children a little bit of independence is more difficult on us than it is on them.

Today I played with him a little bit in his exersaucer and on his play mat and then he decided he'd had enough and sounded like he was ready for a nap. So we swaddled him and Mr. B rocked him and sung him to sleep and placed him in his crib. So far he's been in there for 10 - 15 minutes and he's doing well. Normally I can't get him to sleep during the day unless he's in the swing. There are room darkening curtains in his room so maybe he just needs the darkness to be able to sleep properly. I've noticed that he's been getting up with the sun these past few days, which means he's been getting up earlier and earlier. That may also be why he stayed up so late last night.

I hope this continues going this well. I still need to get a change table for Pierce's room, so we'll be able to do diaper changes in there soon, too, which will make putting him there overnight much easier.

We took Pierce to the Hospital this Evening

First, he's fine and it's probably nothing major.

A few days ago I noticed some light red/pink in one of the diapers I pulled out of the diaper pail when I was doing some laundry. I also noticed some red on the inside of a diaper cover in the same load of laundry. It was a poopy diaper so the next time I changed Pierce's diaper I checked his bum to see if he had a hemorrhoid, but I didn't see anything.

I asked Mr. B to keep an eye out in his poopy diapers for anything that looked like blood and today as he was changing Pierce's diaper he noticed a little bit of light red/pink again. There is a walk-in pediatrician at the grocery store near me, so we decided to go, but there was a huge line, (you can't get a pediatrician in this area unless your child is sick) so we decided to go to the hospital instead since we knew it'd be a shorter wait.

The doctor that saw us at the hospital was the same doctor who saw me when I went to the emergency after my c-section incision got infected. He's really nice and it was nice to have someone I'd seen before. I showed him the diaper and he looked at Pierce's bum. He told us that he's not convinced that it's blood and he gave us a kit to use to take some samples. We're to take samples on three different days and then return the kit to the hospital's lab. Our family doctor will have the results about a week after that.

I feel a bit reassured after our visit to the hospital today, but I am still worried about what's going on. If it's not blood, what is it? Hopefully just nothing. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that it's nothing serious.