This past week has been really good. I really felt ready to start socializing and meeting other moms. I joined the Fairlington MOMS club and went to my first event—the Halloween party. I rushed over as soon as I finished feeding him and he slept almost the whole time. It was funny because it really wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he was there or not. He just stayed in his stroller the whole time while I talked to the mom’s. But he did get to wear a super cute Halloween costume!

Then the next night, we went over to Rachel and Matt’s house to help pass out candy to trick-or-treaters and hang out. It was really fun to see everyone and show off Sam. He donned his second Halloween costume and looked adorable (of course!).

Mom is coming tomorrow and I am really looking forward to having some adult company during the day!

At the end of the second week, I had a meltdown (hormones again!) and decided I was ready to give up breastfeeding because I was soooo tired. I really wanted to switch to formula just so I wouldn’t be the only one that was able to feed Sam. We decided to follow my sister and her husband’s model of having Dad take over one nighttime feeding. However, because this Mom is such a sleeper, Dad took over two nighttime feedings. I fed Sam at 10:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. Ben fed Sam pumped milk at 1:30 a.m. and formula at 7:30 a.m. This made suuuuuch a huge difference. The third week is the first week I can say that I really enjoyed myself and thought that it might be possible in some distant future to have maybe one more child. I know it wasn’t easy for Ben, and he went into work late on very little energy but I feel like he saved my life. So thank you to the best husband in the world!!

This was another tough week but already things were getting better. At this point, I realized that there was something wrong with the way the breastfeeding was going. I was in soooo much pain. I decided to call the lactation consultant that my friend Theresa and our pediatrician recommended. She came to our house at 9pm and was the answer to my prayers. I won’t go into all of the details but she helped me to be able to breastfeed and not be in pain!

By this week, I started sleeping in our bedroom again. I was pumping after every feeding (on Pat Shelly’s recommendation) and so Ben had to get up with me to feed Sam bottled milk while I pumped. Even though I am sure Ben would have preferred to have stayed in bed, for me it was really nice having that time together in the middle of the nights. And I guess at this point I was tired enough that I was able to sleep through Sam’s little gurgles and squaks.

This was probably the hardest week of my life. Sam is lucky that he is so cute and I am lucky that I had an instant bond with him, otherwise I am not sure I would have made it through. My hormones were so out of control (I’m sure they are still not totally in check) and I felt the need to cry all the time! I was totally sleep deprived and to top it off, I had insomnia. I could not fall asleep to save my life. I remember just lying there thinking, one hour until I have to feed him again, 45 minutes until I have to feed him again, 30 minutes until I have to feed him again. Usually by 20 minutes I would just get up and go do something productive. Originally we had planned to keep Sam in our room in a bassinet. However, it was instantly clear that wasn’t going to work. My eyes popped open at even the smallest noise that Sam would make. So we moved him to his room in his crib, which still didn’t fix the problem. At night, I would go sleep on the couch in our basement. When Sam would wake up, Ben would call me on my cell phone and I would come upstairs to feed him. By this point I was taking Benadryl and could actually fall asleep. That solution saved me for the first week and I am so thankful Ben was willing to play along!

So we had just gone to bed at about 11:30 and I was lying in bed still awake. At about midnight I felt this weird feeling (kind of like Sam had kicked me really hard) followed by a contraction. I gasped. I didn’t realize it was a contraction I was worried something was wrong with Sam. But when I gasped, Ben woke up and realized what was happening. Then I rolled over and had a huge gush of water. At that point it was obvious that I was in labor. I got really panicky, like “Wait! I’m not ready for this,” which is funny since I had been feeling ready for the last month!

So I called my doctor and he said to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital at 2ish. We weren’t really in a rush since we learned in our child birth class that most first time deliveries take about 18 hours.

By the time I got checked in to my room, my contractions were really starting to hurt and they were only 3 minutes apart. I decided I wanted an epidural NOW but my nurse hadn’t come in. Within the next 10 minutes the contractions got so bad I thought I was going to die of pain. It was unbelievable! I didn’t realize how bad that part of labor would hurt!! After what seemed like hours, but was probably only 20-30 minutes, the anesthesiologist finally came in and gave me the epidural. It was really weird going in (like a spasm in my spine) but it was well worth it.

After that I fell asleep. The nurse came to check on me in a few hours and I was already dilated to 8 cm (at 10 cm you start pushing). I really wanted to push but my doctor wasn’t there yet so I had to wait. Once he got there I pushed for an hour and then out popped Sam. It was really exhausting but not too painful since I was fully medicated!

Samuel Cassidy Miller

9 pounds 7 ounces

22.5 inches

I’ve decided to start a mommy blog. I have really enjoyed reading some of my friends’ blogs. I especially love looking back through the archives to see what their babies were up to when they were Sam’s age and it’s nice to see what milestones I have to look forward to. I have also realized that this time is flying by. And with the sleep deprivation, I know that many of these special times are just going to slip right out of my memory.

I didn’t start writing this blog until Sam was about 4 weeks old, so the first few posts are reflections. Enjoy!