Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby!

I could use your prayers.  I am still significantly sick.  Coughing, sore throat and losing my voice are the most concerning symptoms.  I sure hope I can sing by tonight.  Write me if you know of any home remedies to rescue a voice gone south from coughing.  I've heard of hot tea and lemon, but then I also heard that hot tea can stir up phlegm.  I'll google it.  LOL.

The conference should be great.  Originally K.im Cl.ement was scheduled as the main speaker, but he asked to be released  because the chance to meet with a presidential candidate came up for this same weekend.  In his place, Corey Rus.sell is speaking.  He is from IHOP and has an incredible, miracle testimony and I'm looking forward to hearing him as well.  Every year, there is always something significant from the Lord for me.  At the first conference I received emotional healing from some family stuff that had effected me for most of my life.  At another, soon after our first miscarriage, the pain began to lift after receiving prayer and encouragement from one of the speakers.

Anyway, I anticipate another encounter with God and revelation that will change some things for me in the future which is probably exactly what I need this weekend!

We've got a conference in Cincinnati this weekend and I'm singing and leading a 2pm worship set on Friday, so I really need to rest.  Anyhoo--we got some good pics out there and had a wonderful time despite the fact that I should have stayed home ;)

Poor Zeke, though, I wore him out, too.  I had a new mommy moment.  My parents dropped me back to my car and he was fine.  I had to pee really badly, but decided to wait the 15 minutes until I got home.  I got 3 minutes on the road and Zeke started to cry his hunger cry and it got really desperate.  He must have been starving.  I pulled into the nearest Starbucks and called my parents to meet me.  HELP!  I nursed him in the parking lot until mom and dad came and then I had mom mix a bottle of formula for him and feed him while I ran in to pee.  I admit I peed my pants a little--darn stress incontinence.  Then, we all sat inside while Zeke ate and had some coffee and tea.  Tyler and Lilly played chess.  Turned out to be a fun time despite my mommy incompetence.  Zeke was hungry again when we got home and overtired.  Poor guy.

Here are some cute pics, though!

The first 3 are from a October morning walk downtown.  It was a bit chilly out.  The rest are the punkin patch.  Oh, there are some of me and Mom, too, but they are on her camera.

I gave him some children's tylenol and after two hours of straight crying, he finally fell asleep in my arms as we layed in our bed.  I had a migraine headache by this time, maybe from the crying, but probably from the flu vaccine that I got and had to sniff into my head.  So, we layed there together.  I've never fell asleep with him in the bed cause of the risks, so I set the alarm on my phone for every 5 minutes.

Finally, Dan came home and by this time, Zeke was able to wake up and eat.  He went to bed a bit earlier that night and slept well.  Next morning, he was happy, chatty and feeling great!  What a relief.  He was fine all day yesterday, but around 8:00pm, I noticed he was feeling a bit hot after another dose of tylenol, he sweated and sweated and got cooler.  He must still feeling some effects of the vaccines because he slept 8 hours last night woke up ate and is now sleeping again.  Poor baby.  At least he isn't crying and the tylenol can keep him out of pain.

I just keep reminding myself that he would be feeling much worse and so would we if he happened to ever get one of those terrible diseases...

I wrote this in my notes section on facebook, but not everyone is on facebook, so I'll probably always cut and paste any posts there to here as well.

CRYING OVER SPILLED MILK

I just dropped an ounce of breast milk in a bottle with the pump attachment into a bucket of water. Man. I hate when I have stupid accidents like this. I was trying to adjust the shield and I knocked the attachment off and it splashed right in.

This reminds me of a couple things. First, I've come a long way. I just pumped an ounce of milk in 5 minutes and although it is wasted and that makes me incredibly sad, I didn't lose ALL of the milk and can pump more right now. I am thinking of the first time I pumped and got a measly 1/4 ounce from both breasts combined. Devastating. I'm so thankful that 1/4 ounce has now increased to 3 and 3/4 ounces.

I spilled breast milk one other time. It was 3am. I was exhausted. Zeke was super hungry. I was proudly showing Dan that I had pumped 1.5 ounces of breast milk. The most ever! He was happy, but encouraged me to hurry up cause Zeke was hungry, so I dumped it right in the bottle I had been preparing and it went right through and onto the counter because I had neglected to put the liner in. I bawled and bawled over that spilled milk.

Thinking about this reminds me just how far we've come. Wasting breast milk will never feel good, but I'm glad it probably will never feel as bad as it did that first time.

Ha.  This Barry Manilow t-shirt cracks me up because I was named after the song he sang called Mandy and this shirt has the name Sandy where someone put it on in felt letters!  Only in the 70s!

These pictures are from last night.  I cannot believe this, but they are of Zeke's first time sitting in a bumbo seat.  For the last few weeks, Dan and I both have been amazed at Zeke pulling himself up to sitting on our laps.  We would say "Do you want to pull up?" and as he had hold of both of our hands in his, his little face would turn red and he would pull himself up some.  But, yesterday morning when he was sitting in his bouncy seat, we noticed he was sort of doing this crunch thing trying to sit himself up instead of reclining.  So, I bought the bumbo seat after church.  I think he's gonna be able to use it for short periods of time even though he isn't quite 12 weeks, yet.

It didn't help that breast feeding became a utter nightmare.  I don't even want to think back to the days when I was nursing Zeke through the most devestating pain from mastitis, thrush and wounded nipples.  I just nursed and nursed him through the pain and tears and yet he continued to lose weight.  Finally, the pediatrician suggested I pump and give him the expressed milk so that my body could heal and we could measure his intake.  I'll never forget that first pumping session and being devastated when pumping both breasts for 30 minutes yielded less than 1/2 an ounce of breast milk.  It seemed as though our nursing relationship was over and Zeke would get very little breast milk.

However, I am glad to report that after 6 weeks of pumping, nursing and supplementing, Zeke is getting over 1/3rd of his intake from breast milk!  I think this is a miracle after how bad things got.  I continue to nurse him, then he gets breast milk and then he gets formula, then I pump.  As you can guess this can be very time consuming and overwhelming, but still, I press on.  I go to a breast feeding support group, and a lactation consultant there spent lots of time watching Zeke nurse and discovered that he has some physical difficulties removing milk due to a high palate and short frenulum.  The first time we weighed him before and after nursing, he only took 5 milliliters.  What a blow.  Two weeks later he took 15 ml, and just last week, he took 20 ml.  This is still not great.  Twenty milliliters translates to 2/3rds of an ounce.  So, you can see why it is still necessary for me to pump and give him expressed milk not only to maintain my supply, but for his nourishment as well.

Post partum hormones didn't help, either.  I don't even want to talk about hormones.  Craziness.

BUT ! I am so pleased to tell you, though, that I am feeling much better emotionally.  There was a turning point around the 8th week after Zeke's birth where I started feeling like myself, again, and feeling less overwhelmed.

And, here is the most important bit of news.  Enough about me--Zeke is doing amazing and really has been other than losing a bit of weight.  He was back to his birth weight by 3 weeks and growing on the same curve as his birth at 4 weeks.  He had a week of where he gained like 14 ounces of catch up weight, which is incredible.  Right now, he is 23" long and a roly poly 11 1/2 pounds!  His temperament is unreal.  He is very, very happy and calm.  I thought he would be calm because he was in the womb.  He rarley cries except for hunger and wet diapers and we can usually head that off at the pass. He loves to coo and talk to us and he's been smiling to light up the room since he was 6 weeks.  Around 6 weeks, too, he began waking up only 1 time in the night and since then he has maintained that mostly.  There is an occasional night that he will sleep 8 or 9 hours, but mostly it's 6 or 7 which is great.

I am enjoying spending time with Zeke and watching him grow and discover the world.  He is super cuddly and we spend a lot of time holding him, hugging him, kissing him, singing and talking with him and reading to him.  Just this morning, I wore him in my peanut shell while I lead worship and I thought that was a very nice experience.

I nurse him in public as discreetly as possible and this helps because I enjoying walking to the library or Starbucks to get a bit of fresh air and chai tea.  Sometimes when I am away from the house I begin to feel less stressed and I really enjoy those times when I can relax, enjoy a book and my tea while wearing Zeke in the sling.  Usually I feed him and then he sleeps while I hang out.

He is taking a monster nap, right now, and that is one of the reasons I am able to post.  Sometimes, he only takes little cat naps and I find that it can be difficult to eat even when that happens. 

I guess the moral of this story is that I am so thankful for Zeke and am always reminded that he is a gift and blessing from God.  I am reminded of my humanity when it comes to receiving this miracle.  Everything leading up to his birth has seemed so supernatural.  And then, the miracle arrived into this world and we've muddled our way through the big adjustment.  I am feeling less guilty, now, because I'm reminded that no matter what trial I've walked through or heartache I've experienced, it still doesn't save me from fully experiencing the fulfillment when it comes, and sometimes fulfillment includes experiencing suffering and blessing.  This is our human experience and it is the experience of Christ, too.  Thankfully, we have His Spirit to be our strength, our Comfort and our help.  I'm afraid I could lose sight of the blessing in the midst of suffering without His help.

Then we were inside and he was sitting on my mom's lap and smiling away, but by the time I got around to getting a pic he was back to thinking, again.  Anyway, I think they are still cute pics.

I'm doing okay.  The break coming up here was good for me.  It's been hard at home and overwhelming.

I had he privilege to christen my grandmother Nanan as a toddler.  She had a rough life, but was honest, hard-working and well loved.  There were tons of people at her funeral and she was honored in a beautiful way.

She visited me and Zekie when he was 2 or 3 weeks old.  I just wish we would have taken pictures.  She was proud of him and cried when she heard the good news that he does not have the disease.

She knew the Lord as a teenager and was seeking to know more of Him until her last day.

We are all sad and she will be so missed.  My mom is especially grieving and I wish I knew how to ease her pain.  I can't even imagine losing your mom, so I'm afraid I won't be much help to her.  Holding Zekie makes her feel better for a little while.

Ah, well, we'll get it figured out at some point. 

Hopefully, I'll get a new power cord, soon, and I'll have something more eloquent and personal to share as well as some new pics.

Much love to all,

Mandy