Breastfeeding: The New Mom Files

When you find out that you're pregnant, there are a million things that you automatically think about, such as do I use cloth diapers or disposables?  When do we move baby to their own room? Do I breastfeed or bottle feed?  When I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to try breastfeeding.  I had images of it being fairly easy, even though I had heard it could be hard - I had friends and family who tried and it just didn't work.  Nobody told me just how hard it would be.

Our son was born 6 weeks early.  This meant that my milk was not ready to come out.  I had to force my body to start producing it.  The day after I had him, the NICU nurses encouraged me to start pumping and bringing them anything I got.  So I started pumping, at first bringing them a drop or two, they called anything I got "liquid gold".  Every 3 hours I would wake up (unless I was already awake) and pump, bringing them the liquid gold. I was so proud the first time I brought them a ml!

When I got discharged from the hospital, I went to stay with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend in the same city where our son was born so I could be close to him.  I continued to pump every 3 hours, taking whatever milk I had to the hospital with me to give to him.  It was exhausting, overwhelming, and painful.  I wasn't sure how I was going to keep this up after we left and came back home, especially since the most I ever pumped was about 3-4 ozs (boy was I excited when that happened!).  But I wanted to keep going since I wanted our son to have more breast milk than formula, which the nurses had been giving him to supplement what I was bringing in to feed him.  This continued on for almost 4 weeks until we came home.

Two days before we were due to come home, I stayed in the hospital all day and night to be on call to feed him - called "on demand feeding" so I didn't pump in between feedings.  I wanted him to have lots of milk.  The day before we came home, I stayed in a room across the hall from the NICU for what they call "care by parent".  This is like a trial run for what it would be like at home.  The nurses come and check on you every so often to see how things are going and to make sure that the baby is doing okay.  I didn't pump during this time either.

When we got home, things changed, for a day or 2 after, I didn't pump, whether I was too tired, overwhelmed, lazy, forgetful, I don't know, probably all of those.  This turned out to be a big mistake.  I would become engrossed in something and forget to pump.  At night, I wanted to get as much sleep between my son's feedings as possible so I got lazy and didn't pump.  Pretty soon I was sporadically pumping and I basically ended up back at square one with drops of milk.

Feelings of guilt spread through me, making me feel like the worst mom ever, even though the NICU nurses told me that if I ended up formula feeding him for whatever reason, that didn't make me a bad mom.  I still cried anyway.  Eventually, about a month ago, when our son was 3 months old,  I made the decision to stop trying to pump - he wouldn't take the breast and I figured I was dried up (there wasn't really anything coming out), and formula feeding him worked best with our lives anyway.  For a while I felt okay with my decision, backed up by a public health nurse saying that I was likely dried up and it wouldn't work.

A few days ago, for a reason I have yet to figure out, I decided to try hand expressing (which I have always found difficult).  To my surprise, I had a couple droplets come out, which gave me hope that I may be able to re-lactate using the pump and Mother's Milk tea.  So here I am, trying to re-lactate to give my son more breast milk and it's still a struggle.  I'm still forgetful/lazy.  I have decided this time that if it works, awesome, if it doesn't, it doesn't, at least he got a full month of breast milk to help with the immunity and other great benefits that breast milk has.

It's been a roller coaster for the past 4 months.  I think that if our son hadn't had to come early, I would have been better prepared to take on the challenge of breastfeeding.  As it stands now, when we have our next child, I will know what to do and be better prepared to dive headfirst in to breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is overwhelming, challenging, and rewarding.  I would encourage other moms out there that are struggling with breastfeeding not to give up.  There are support systems out there - like family and friends, the La Leche League, a public health nurse - they all have great resources to help you try to figure it out.

Until next time- happy breastfeeding!

Life happens

Hey guys!

I know, I know, it's been over a year since my last post.  As the title of this blog states, life happened, which made me forget about writing on this blog.

Let's start from August 2013.  Joe and I went to Fan Expo again, I made a necklace, 2 corsets and a skirt (with the help of my friend) to wear there.

One corset that we made.  I also made the "goggles" too.  You can see the necklace that I made.

A close up of the necklace.

My friend and I.  The other corset and the skirt that we made.

It was an awesome time!  Joe and I left Fan Expo for a day to attend friends of ours wedding, which was also fantastic!  We got lots of stuff at Fan Expo, including a drawing and more signed stuff.  I would show you, but I didn't take any pictures.  

September we moved to a smaller city 3 hours away from the majority of our friends and family.  It's a beautiful city, but it has been an adjustment!  October I found out I was pregnant!  It was a happy surprise even though it was wanted!  Our son arrived 6 weeks early and I spend almost 4 weeks in the next city over while he was in the NICU.  He is doing amazing and has enriched our lives, even if some days the frustration takes over!  

Mommy and son!

That brings us to now.  I'm considering going to Fan Expo solo (meeting up with friends though), leaving Joe and our little guy at home.  That will be a weird experience, but I'm not sure both Joe and I could go this year.  We will see how it goes!

Anyway, that's pretty much all that has happened!  Hopefully I will remember to continue these blogs, as it's pretty fun writing about things, whether it's life/thought stuff or craft stuff.  

What have you been up to lately? Any crafting? Travels?

Mini Top Hats make me feel pretty!

Hello folks!

I'm slacking again on the blogs! lol...ah well, I'm busy working...and crafting!

This post is about a mini top hat that I made.  My friend has been coming over to craft with me and last week she put up a challenge for both of us to do.  The challenge was to make a mini top hat.  So with the challenge posed, we used the video below from ThreadBanger as a guide to make our own hats.

I forgot to take pictures of the process, but I basically did the steps that the woman in the video took minus the feathers and lace.  What I did with mine was made a corset out of a satin fabric that I had and used a ribbon to lace it up.

Isn't it cute?!

I had to redo the top of my hat because the glue that I used for the bias tape (the black material around the brim and the top of the hat) originally, made a huge mess and was staining the purple satin.  I made another top piece and just used a hot glue gun and it worked much better as you can see :).

Here is a pic of me wearing it:

I love it!

I think it turned out really well! (Ignore my reading glasses, I was wearing them while I was crafting so I didn't strain my eyes).  It's really floppy though, so I think I'm going to put a small piece of fabric on one, or maybe both sides so that I can put a bobby pin in to secure it better.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my final product, even though I didn't have any process pictures!  Have you ever done anything like this? I would love to see pictures of them if you have!

One Armed Bandit...For Now!

Sorry for the hiatus! I have been busy this past week!  I'll get right down to business! ha ha

I am 98% done my second piece to one of my costumes for Fan Expo!  I say 98% because I have to resew the one arm piece because I sewed it too big, then I have to sew the elastic piece on and glue the gear on. So I guess that would make it more like 95%, but I'm not very good at percentages.  Math is not my friend..but I digress...

I made arm sleeves.  (What else could I call them? they're not gauntlets, and they're not wristbands...anyway).  To do my arm bands, I first took a silver gear:

I used silver because I'm almost out of my gold and brassy coloured gears and figured there was something else I could use those for.  I painted the gears with a gold/brass paint mixture.

I was going to use a bit of chain that I painted up, but it wasn't going to work the way I wanted it to, so I nixed the chain from my final design.

This is what I was going to use, but when I put it around my wrist/hand the way I wanted it to go, it was too big.

 After I painted the gears and let them dry, I moved on to cutting pieces out of an old costume that I found at the free market (you can read about one of my excursions to the free market here).

Once the two pieces were cut, I pinned the fabric around my arm so that I could fit it snug around my arm.  I then sewed the ends together (removing the safety pins as I went of course).

I then tried the arm band on to make sure it fit.  It was the perfect size! 

The second to last step I did was to attach the elastic piece that goes around my finger (to keep the arm band on and immoveable).  I used the elastic pieces from another set of costume arm sleeves/bands that I wasn't going to use again and just sewed them on.

The last step was to glue on the gear so I just used some Crayola 3D glue that dried clear.  Once it was dry, I tried it on again just to make sure that everything was good.

Here is the final piece! I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out!

I can't wait to get the other one fixed up so that I can have awesome arm bands/sleeves and then I can move on to other parts of my costume..like the corset!

Being crafty is awesome! And keeps me busy, what do you do to keep busy? Is it simply reading books? Is it playing video games? Sports? I'd love to hear what keeps you busy, who knows? I might find something new to try out!

People are ---->insert word here<-----

Today I think I will say people are interesting.  For now...

I say that people are interesting because I like knowing what goes on in people's lives (yes, I'm a bit nosy, but not horribly so) and how they react to different things.  Sometimes it's nice to know that you're not alone when it comes to an event in your life that is bad and changes it drastically.   It's nice to know that somebody else has come out of their bad experience because of the power of positivity.  It in turn can give you the positivity to look on the bright side of things and know that life is going to get better.

I watch vlogs on YouTube and the people I watch have all had bad things happen to them which they have shared with their viewers.  They have all come out of it with a positive attitude because of the love and support that their viewers and family have provided.

For instance, Cory Williams (smpfilms) went through a divorce .  Charles Trippy (CTFxC/InternetKilledTV) had a brain tumour and surgery to get rid of it last year and then this year, a couple of weeks ago, had two more seizures. Shay Carl (SHAYTARDS) and his family have gone through a couple big moves and the loss of their dog Malachi.  Their viewers, myself included give positive thoughts and comments, which helps them to cope with things.  It shows them that there are still good people out there. 

Wow, when did this blog become about positivity? ha ha! Seriously though, we all need some positivity in our lives, especially with the way the world is now. 

These vloggers have inspired me to try to be more positive (still working REALLY hard on it!) and to try new things (like this blog).

This may seem like a really random blog, but I just thought I'd share my nosiness (ha ha!) and my thoughts on positivity and how it can help change your life.

This blog has been brought to you by the words positive and positivity! (ha ha! Sesame Street anyone?)

I'm working on changing my life through the power of positive thinking.  Have positive thoughts made you change your life?

Colourful Improvement! :)

Remember this and how I said I was going to revamp it?:

If not, you can read about it here!  Well, I painted it! I know, not very crafty, but I like it!

First, I took out the drawers so that I could paint the outside of the unit (makes sense right?! ;) ).

 

I used paint that I had left over from various crafts.  For this project I used both acrylic and 3D paints, although  I prefer acrylic paints and use them more.  The acrylic paint worked a lot better than the 3D paint, but the 3D paint gave a nice shine as you'll see.

I used an Antique White acrylic paint to cover the outside.  It took about 3 coats.

I left most of the inside green because I wasn't sure if the drawers would fit back in there and move smoothly with paint covering the tracks.

Next I moved on to the drawers.  I decided to paint each quadrant 2 different colours.  The bottom two colours would be the same and the top two in the quadrant would be the same.

Such pretty colours :)

The yellow, light blue (looks kind of grey in this picture) and the dark blue were all the 3D paint.  The yellow and the light blue had 5 coats of paint on them and the dark blue had 3 coats.  The green, gold and bronze were all acrylic paints, which went on smoother and took only 3 coats.  The 3D paints were pretty tacky, so I would suggest waiting a little bit longer before putting your pieces together (for whatever craft you're using them for).

Are you ready for it? The final piece de resistance!:

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out! Now I just have to figure out what fun things I'm going to put in the drawers!

What have you worked on recently that you're proud of? Training for a run? A craft? A school project?

Hmmmm

*in a singing voice* Bloggity blog blog blog blog, blog blog blog blog, oh when I get to blogging we all shall have a laugh!

ahem anyway, enough of that.  Let's get down to business, today I've been having a hard time coming up with something to write for the blog, along with being mildly busy.  Writer's block can happen, especially when you don't lead a very exciting life!

Oh! I know what I could talk about!  Fan Expo, a big convention in the big TO is happening in....128 days! I'm super excited!  It's a place to get your nerd on for sure! There's celebs from movies, TV shows, anime, comic books, games and this year they've added sports to the mix.  There is also an insane amount of vendors from which you can buy all sorts of things from the above categories.  Tons of awesome cos play (which Joe and I participate in) handmade by the people that wear the costumes.  It's a fantastic time and something I look forward to every year, and have since 2011 when Joe and I went to this convention for the every first time.  By the end of it though, we're so tired we're kind of glad to go home.  We end up with lots of cool stuff though, like autographed pictures and different stuff.  Last year I bought a Freddy Krueger pillow! The claws look like they're coming out of the pillow and ripping it:

See? Isn't it freaking cool?!

This is my favourite thing from last year!  The year before was actually getting to meet Robert Englund, my most favourite actor (he played Freddy Krueger!).  Not much can beat that!

Anyway....(I say that a lot, don't I? :S)

What do you look forward to?  The change of the seasons? Summer break/vacation?  A fun place (like a convention or Disney World)?

P.S. I know I'm a bit late posting this one lol