Weekly thread, July 4-11 - Page 5

[loveneverfails]

Well, let's put it this way. I COMPLETELY FREAKING WIN AT BIRTHING STOOLS, whereas LaugingFox? She didn't even achieve mastery over May. There's an inherent glow that comes from kicking the cr@p out of the month where your due date had the audacity to fall. I clearly have it. But LaughingFox... *sighs*



I'm in the freaking Mohawk River Valley, and it was 97 here yesterday. I only have one air conditioning unit. Weep for me, people.

[MaterPrimaePuellae]

Hi all! I haven't posted in a while because we don't have access at our new house. We're going to have to sign up for satellite internet, it's so far out in the country....

All is well here. DS is ~13 lbs (per the Target produce scale ), and he's a really happy baby. I have been spending a lot of time unpacking/cleaning/etc in the new house, and (if he's no hungry or sleepy) he'll actually happily sit for 30 minutes or so in the bumbo.

I wish I had time to respond to individual posts, but I'm typing with one hand while nak and I'm supposed to be cleaning our apt...

[jsh7809]

No heat wave here but I can't read your posts because I CAN'T STOP ITCHING ALL OVER MY BODY!! WTF?! No rash, no other symptoms, just a terrible itch. So bad I could barely sleep. Benadryl, lotion, oatmeal baths are not helping. Argh.
I was just starting to feel MUCH better from the Zoloft and am now worried it could be causing this itch. It's been almost 3 weeks so my psychiatrist thinks not but I can't keep itching and not sleeping and I don't know where to start.
F!!

[ivymae]

I'm here! Pushing through, making appointments, trying to stay out of the house as much as possible, while also avoiding all human contact (aka a lot of walks with baby in the sling, and both girls strapped into the jogging stroller, walking miles around our neighborhood). Just feeling very 'inside my own head' lately, and overwhelmed by social graces and chitchat. i'm not very good at asking for/taking help, but I am trying to let down my guard with the people I see daily, so my neighbors, motherinlaw, etc, while also avoiding them. Bring me dinner, but don't ask how I am! RARR!

Still trying to figure out how to navigate it all with DH. I've mentioned before that his family has a history of severe mental illness (commitments are common enough that they are almost normal) so he is a bit gunshy. he oscillates between acting like everything is OKAY, IT'S OKAY, to getting depressed himself because he feels like he should have been able to prevent it, which, uh, doesn't help. He'll support me whatever i want to do, but is obviously confused emotionally about how to act/respond (which puts me on edge about how much to share with him). Blah blah blah.

Okay, I'm going to go for a walk.

[laughingfox]

Originally Posted by Peace+Hope

how do you guys find time to do FB???

by phone, while filling my gas tank

Originally Posted by MaterPrimaePuellae

DS is ~13 lbs (per the Target produce scale ), and he's a really happy baby.

We used to weigh DD1 on a grocery scale that was in the bulk foods section of our local store every week or so. It would print out a little ticket showing how much your product weighed and what the total cost was. It was fun comparing the cost of one-baby's-worth of flour to one-baby's-worth of chocolate covered almonds.
We kept all of the printouts, but they were on that weird paper that turns grey and loses its print in the heat, so they faded out when we moved.

Originally Posted by ivymae

...and overwhelmed by social graces and chitchat.

I so get this sentiment. I've been feeling really worn out just from quick phone conversations lately. It just seems like so much effort, for some strange reason. Internet, I can handle, though, because I can always walk away and come back later. I do that, a lot.
Also,

Originally Posted by jsh7809

No heat wave here but I can't read your posts because I CAN'T STOP ITCHING ALL OVER MY BODY!! WTF?!

Have you changed soaps/laundry detergents/shampoos/lotions/etc lately?

I hate being itchy.
One of the first things that made me decide I didn't want an epidural is that I heard from some women that it made their legs itch like crazy the whole time it was in. I would seriously not have been able to handle that.

Originally Posted by loveneverfails

Well, let's put it this way. I COMPLETELY FREAKING WIN AT BIRTHING STOOLS, whereas LaugingFox? She didn't even achieve mastery over May. There's an inherent glow that comes from kicking the cr@p out of the month where your due date had the audacity to fall. I clearly have it. But LaughingFox... *sighs*

P.S. You just lost 5 points, because you fail at spelling.

Speaking of going the golden birth stool and therefore speaking of going post dates:
I found this really interesting website where you can reference CDC data, which is pulled from birth/death certificates (I think), and categorize it any way you like. I'm not an expert in statistics by any means, I just have a research addiction.

Anyway, you know how birth at 37 weeks is generally considered safe, but lots of people in the medical field (and sometimes the midwifery field) freak out after 41 weeks, because if the increase in chance of death? Well, here are some numbers, based on 4,138,573 births in the US from 2003-2005:
37 weeks gestation, death rate of 3.92 per thousand
38 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.67 per thousand
39 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.13 per thousand
40 weeks gestation, death rate of 1.98 per thousand
41 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.13 per thousand
42 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.60 per thousand
43 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.60 per thousand
44 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.59 per thousand
45 weeks gestation, death rate of 3.01 per thousand
46 weeks gestation, death rate of 4.03 per thousand
So, yes, death rate does increase after 40 weeks, but according to these numbers, 45 weeks gestation had a lower death rate than 37, and 44 weeks gestation had a lower death rate than 38.
Obviously, numbers don't tell us everything and there are plenty of factors that aren't included here, but I thought that was pretty darn interesting.

[GreenTeaGinger61]

Hey Ivy I hope the space helps bring you to a better place. My dh doesn't have a history of dealing with mental illness but I don't think he's ever been depressed, and it's very hard for him to understand where I'm coming from. He tires to fix it which annoys me, and we just end up fighting.

LNF: You really do win with crazy in-laws..at least here. I have a friend whose MIL is seriously nuts.

AFM: I think H is very likely to get the job in Hillsborough, NC. The principal liked him a lot and said somethings that usually lead me to think "Okay I have it." We're excited but also nervous. It would mean another move, and I"m not sure what I'd do about my job. We need my job even though it pays little. It's what keeps up from having to scrimp every penny. But it's a job. I figure things will work out. My MIL will of course be thanking St. Jude if he gets it....she's convinced that her prayers to St. Jude keep H in work and for all I know she's right

R giggled today!!!! It was to die for cute. She only did it once but I'm sure more will come. She's been very into making noises to get my attention of late. Now I'm trying to get her to nap so I can do some more cleaning (I keep thinking that I might have to pack it all up again). I do have supper in the fridge ready to be heated. I swear I an either pick cleaning or cooking but not both.

[loveneverfails]

Oh, and we got Mercy's medical records.

Guess how many pages the records we received were? That's right... 5 pages of records. 2 of those pages were radiologist reports. On neither radiologist report was there any pneumonia found. The 2nd x-ray was 7 days after the 1st one. So, 7 days into the antibiotics for her "pneumonia." There was only a slight improvement in the level of inflammation found. What they saw was "compatible with pneumonitis or primary vascular congestion." No one saw pneumonia at all, ever. We spent 10 days on antibiotics in the hospital for an infection that was never there. I am not happy.

[Peace+Hope]

Originally Posted by loveneverfails

Oh, and we got Mercy's medical records.

Guess how many pages the records we received were? That's right... 5 pages of records. 2 of those pages were radiologist reports. On neither radiologist report was there any pneumonia found. The 2nd x-ray was 7 days after the 1st one. So, 7 days into the antibiotics for her "pneumonia." There was only a slight improvement in the level of inflammation found. What they saw was "compatible with pneumonitis or primary vascular congestion." No one saw pneumonia at all, ever. We spent 10 days on antibiotics in the hospital for an infection that was never there. I am not happy.

WOAH! that is a huge deal, especially (i say b/c the medical bills are mounting over here) if you end up owing out of pocket! flat wrong anyway. what do you think you might do/say? the pressure in the NICU was pretty extreme - talk about playing the dead baby card!

gtg, wow, i hope your husband gets that job! timing is so tough in a situation like this, it must be hard knowing you don't have it to look into the local jobs. but at least you'd like living in hillsborough. lately, i've seen that charlotte has the worst air quality of any city in the whole country! i hope you can find a job once you move too. R sounds so yummy

mpp, hey! how's the new house?

ivy, thanks for checking in. i can totally identify w/ your feelings of not being able to handle chitchat. it took me about 3 weeks after charlie was born to accept more than 30 minute visits even from family. for me it was pre-e recovery, of course your reason is physical too. i hope you feel ok creating that space for yourself, and still asking for help when you need it.

jsh, i hope the itching isn't related to the meds!

[Carita]

so - that cdc site is cool - when they say weeks of gestation, they must mean after fertilization, so 17 weeks is really 19, right? 20% survival rate at 19 weeks??? does that seem high?

and the figure about 40 weeks having lowest death rate in the first year of life must be 42 weeks then, right?

green tea, i would just start emailing colleges in the area to see who is taking adjuncts - that's what you do, right? there are lots of colleges in NC. when i moved up here for DHs job, i just e-mailed people along with my CV and I had 3 offers for adjunct positions!

jess - thinking abot the meds and itching as well or that itching that you get when you spend too much time in the sun? isn't there some hormone thing that causes sun sensitivity like that? pups?

[laughingfox]

Originally Posted by Carita

so - that cdc site is cool - when they say weeks of gestation, they must mean after fertilization, so 17 weeks is really 19, right? 20% survival rate at 19 weeks??? does that seem high?

and the figure about 40 weeks having lowest death rate in the first year of life must be 42 weeks then, right?

They don't specify, but I'd assume they mean 40 weeks from first-day-of-last-normal-menstrual-period instead of 40 weeks of actual gestation, since that's the way it appears on medical records.
I was pretty shocked to see 17 weeks at all.
The numbers for 17 weeks are pretty low overall- only 300 births recorded for the entire US population over a 3 year period. Maybe they're only counting infants of that gestational age who were born alive to begin with, since unfortunately many at that gestational age are not.

[crazyeight]

Originally Posted by laughingfox

by phone, while filling my gas tank


We used to weigh DD1 on a grocery scale that was in the bulk foods section of our local store every week or so. It would print out a little ticket showing how much your product weighed and what the total cost was. It was fun comparing the cost of one-baby's-worth of flour to one-baby's-worth of chocolate covered almonds.
We kept all of the printouts, but they were on that weird paper that turns grey and loses its print in the heat, so they faded out when we moved.


I so get this sentiment. I've been feeling really worn out just from quick phone conversations lately. It just seems like so much effort, for some strange reason. Internet, I can handle, though, because I can always walk away and come back later. I do that, a lot.
Also,


Have you changed soaps/laundry detergents/shampoos/lotions/etc lately?

I hate being itchy.
One of the first things that made me decide I didn't want an epidural is that I heard from some women that it made their legs itch like crazy the whole time it was in. I would seriously not have been able to handle that.



P.S. You just lost 5 points, because you fail at spelling.

Speaking of going the golden birth stool and therefore speaking of going post dates:
I found this really interesting website where you can reference CDC data, which is pulled from birth/death certificates (I think), and categorize it any way you like. I'm not an expert in statistics by any means, I just have a research addiction.

Anyway, you know how birth at 37 weeks is generally considered safe, but lots of people in the medical field (and sometimes the midwifery field) freak out after 41 weeks, because if the increase in chance of death? Well, here are some numbers, based on 4,138,573 births in the US from 2003-2005:
37 weeks gestation, death rate of 3.92 per thousand
38 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.67 per thousand
39 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.13 per thousand
40 weeks gestation, death rate of 1.98 per thousand
41 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.13 per thousand
42 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.60 per thousand
43 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.60 per thousand
44 weeks gestation, death rate of 2.59 per thousand
45 weeks gestation, death rate of 3.01 per thousand
46 weeks gestation, death rate of 4.03 per thousand
So, yes, death rate does increase after 40 weeks, but according to these numbers, 45 weeks gestation had a lower death rate than 37, and 44 weeks gestation had a lower death rate than 38.
Obviously, numbers don't tell us everything and there are plenty of factors that aren't included here, but I thought that was pretty darn interesting.

i totally copied and pasted that to my FB notes and included the link. i have 2 cousins pg right now and one is a L&D nurse and i really gotta wonder what she thinks of what i say! lol. and i am feeling particularly...rude so it's not exactly a nice note.

and i am not up to the chit chat right now either. we're drowning financially faster than i thought and i'm just not to positive that anything will work....and if they do it won't be for several months until after i get dispersments from my pell for school and then it's a whole nother pile of crap to be stressed about.....

[jsh7809]

Originally Posted by ivymae

I'm here! Pushing through, making appointments, trying to stay out of the house as much as possible, while also avoiding all human contact (aka a lot of walks with baby in the sling, and both girls strapped into the jogging stroller, walking miles around our neighborhood). Just feeling very 'inside my own head' lately, and overwhelmed by social graces and chitchat. i'm not very good at asking for/taking help, but I am trying to let down my guard with the people I see daily, so my neighbors, motherinlaw, etc, while also avoiding them. Bring me dinner, but don't ask how I am! RARR!

Still trying to figure out how to navigate it all with DH. I've mentioned before that his family has a history of severe mental illness (commitments are common enough that they are almost normal) so he is a bit gunshy. he oscillates between acting like everything is OKAY, IT'S OKAY, to getting depressed himself because he feels like he should have been able to prevent it, which, uh, doesn't help. He'll support me whatever i want to do, but is obviously confused emotionally about how to act/respond (which puts me on edge about how much to share with him). Blah blah blah.

Okay, I'm going to go for a walk.

Oh, I can relate to almost all of this SO well (except with only 1 kid instead of three!). I am glad your DH will support you with whatever you want to do, but understand how it's also kind of frustrating to have to worry about his reaction/ emotions when you just don't have any damn room for that. Ugh.

I hope you start feeling much better soon. I have been really feeling much more like myself for about 5 days and haven't had a panic attack in a week! I'm not sure if it's the Zoloft or the SAMe (amino acids I started at the same time) or what. I felt so good and optimistic yesterday that I caught myself wanting to quit the Z and therapy already... because actually doing the work and keeping healthy and putting into place other coping things doesn't sound fun, it sounds scary and like a reminder of how close to the edge I still am.

Sigh.

I'm hoping that this itching is hormonal - definitely feeling some big shifts here recently and hoping to god I'm not getting my period already - and liver cleansing out all of the crap I've taken and been through in the last months. I am hoping so badly that it's not the Zoloft, and that it gets better with some milk thistle and so on SOON. I can't imagine dealing with this amount of itchiness for much longer, yet the thought of trying to wean off the Zoloft a mere 3 weeks into it terrifies me...

[Dena]

Hi everyone! Just popping in to say hi! I have been reading, but never seem to have time to post, too.

Things are ok here - summer is slow for my business, so we are kinda holding our breaths $ wise. But I try to remember that we have never NOT had enough, even if just barely, at the end of any month.

Princess Maya is turning out to be quite the fussy eater - she HAS to be on the nursing pillow, in the football hold, with the breast at JUST the right angle. And then MAYBE she will consent to take enough to hold body and soul together. Ai yi yi. She is growing, but slowly. Thankfully, going dairy free has helped the gas, and the zantac has helped the reflux, so at least we don't have hours and hours of screaming any more.

I see my OB Friday - I think my zoloft needs adjusting. It seems to not be giving me quite as much help as I need. Or maybe I just need adjusting. Who knows.

Otherwise, spending a lot of time going through my mom's stuff, finally. It is kinda hard to part with stuff, but it needs to be done. Silly to keep paying storage fees for stuff we will never use. Sigh.

[rhiOrion]

Jess- I just wanted to give you hugs about the itching. That was the main symptom of the cholestasis (which if you don't remember the saga was what caused me to have to be induced).

It was horrible. I honestly wanted to scratch my feet off of my body. It was waking me up at night and I was in tears. I remember digging in as hard as I could because the pain from scratching really really hard was better than the pain of the itching. Ugh.

[jenfl]

Ah! I don't check in for most of the day and the thread explodes!

Let's see if I can keep up....

bubbamommy -- That's so weird to suggest just swapping out a bottle of breastmilk for formula! I've had weird things like that with our ped, too, though. When Sprout was getting all refluxy, she suggested that I cut out dairy and go to a bland diet, and to try giving him a bottle of formula. Okay, first of all. If you think it might be dairy connected (which it wasn't, we've seen dairy issues and this wasn't it), why would you suggest formula which is most often made from cow milk?! It's not like she said, "try a non-dairy formula". Peds can be so weird.

wishin'&hopin' -- Isn't the holding fingers so cute? Sprout kinda does that; he loves to suck on his fingers so much, he tries to put them in his mouth while he's nursing. So I have to kind of stick my thumb into the palm of his hand to keep his hand out the way, and he ends up "holding" my hand. Of course, I burned my thumb on the 4th and now he's grabbing the burn.... ouch!

P+H -- We try to elongate naps, too. DH is the champion baby shaker -- sometimes Sprout will go back down if you wiggle his butt and back just right. But we've mostly resigned ourselves to 30 minute naps.

MPP -- Hey! Welcome back! And congratulations on the new house!

jess -- Glad to hear you're feeling better mentally, but that really sucks about the itching! My DH had that about a year ago -- turns out he suddenly got allergic to sunscreen! He had to use SPF 15 or below to avoid the crazy itching.

GTG -- on the new job!

lnf -- We also got nearly no records when we requested Sprout's. They sent our ped a summary and if we want more, we have to go to the hospital and pay out the nose. Sprout was the same as Mercy -- his NICU stay was to get antibiotics for an infection he didn't have. Luckily, blood cultures only take 3 days to come back negative. But I can't believe they kept her without actually SEEING anything on the x-ray!! I'm going to run that by DH (a nurse) and see if he knows of any good reason....

Dena -- Glad to see you back!

AFM -- I got a few minutes to myself today! DH and I usually cut each other's hair, but we'd gone a long time without cutting mine, so doing so was a bit tricky and DH... well... he might have butchered my hair a bit. So I got to take an hour to go get a haircut all by myself!

Made an appointment with another doc who does tongue tie to get a second opinion on whether Sprout was clipped enough. It's not until July 30.

Still trying to get him to take a bottle (or cup, or finger feeding....). No luck. Speaking of the rest of MDC being a bit strange, when I posted asking for opinions on when to introduce the bottle, some people told me that I shouldn't! That part of being a mom was not getting a break. I'll tell you, there's some odd ones on here....

[loveneverfails]

She was diagnosed with "presumed sepsis" on the basis of elevated CRP levels. Her lungs did not show pneumonia, although they did show inflammation. It's possible that she had amniotic fluid aspiration (gasping in amniotic fluid under stress) but I think it's more likely that her breathing issues were caused by all of the huge amount of fluid she was holding onto, possibly due to some bizarre twin to twin transfusion issue.

As soon as they put her on dopamine, she started peeing a ton and her respiratory stuff was resolved extremely quickly (from respirator to extubation 24 hours later, weaning on nasal cannula and off of that 24 hours after that), so far more quickly than makes sense with a severe bacterial infection requiring 10 days of IV antibiotics.

And we had all of the cultures done. They all came back negative, and they held us still for a full 10 freaking days on the basis of those CRP levels. And now the labs showing exactly what those levels are? Well, they weren't included. I have radiologist reports but no labs, when the entire reason we got stuck there was the blood work. Something very odd is going on with these people.

[jenfl]

lnf -- You guys' stuff was very similar to us. We also had the elevated CRP and presumed septis. DH suggests to submit another records request, explicitly requesting lab values.

[rhiOrion]

Originally Posted by jenfl

Speaking of the rest of MDC being a bit strange, when I posted asking for opinions on when to introduce the bottle, some people told me that I shouldn't! That part of being a mom was not getting a break. I'll tell you, there's some odd ones on here....

Probably the same people who told me every time I mentioned how sad I was to go back to work that if I wanted to I'd find a way to stay home. *sigh*

Can't I be sad about something but still choose to do it? What hurt the most was that they were probably technically right. So it added a guilt component to it. grr.

And I see no reason that being a mother means you don't get a break. At least after a while. Some people may not experience burn out. But I'm not sure you can know if you're not one of those people until it's too late. So better be prepared like a good boy scout.

[Carita]

hmm - i tune them out - llalaala... it was hard with ds to feel like i want to stay home, but have to go to work, but with 2 crazies at home now, I am sort of excited to spend some quasi adult time at work. LOL.

jen - i think the general rule with bottle introduction is to try and wait until your breastfeeding relationship is sound, then introduce bottle. but as a WOHM that just wasn't possible with ds. I introduced the bottle at 3 weeks on the mark with him and he still was unhappy having to take it until probably well into 9 or 10 weeks, maybe more. i just remember the daycare ladies mentioning several times about him not liking the bottle. the one thing i did do was have DH in charge of the bottle, so he wouldn't be confused, and I've insisted the same with Dani. She gets about 2 bottle pumped milk offered to her/week since about 7 weeks. I have to go back to work in about 1.5 months. She does okay sometimes like during my conference she had several bottles, but usually refuses or just takes an oz. I know if I were more insistent on it, I'd go out and buy another wide mouth dr, browns instead of starting her on the slimmer medela. argh, I should probably do that while I am thinking of it. Anyway - I know from DS we did try a few bottle and nipple combos and DH only did it before he got too hungry.

[smeisnotapirate]

Can't catch up with you gals! YIKES!