Helps I Can

So this weekend Joel is participating in a 48 Hour game Programming contest. Which means starting at 9:00 PM Friday Night, until 9:00 PM Sunday night he will be sitting at his computer writing a computer game. This is the third such contest he has done since we had Holly, though he did them often before she was born as well. She is his little mascot and cheers him on and makes him smile when he is frustrated. The theme this time is roads, and he is writing a game called “Crossroads” which is like scrabble with cars and roads…. Anyways, Joel always warns me way in advance when these contests are coming up, as it means that I need to take Holly for the weekend, I don’t get to sleep in, and I don’t get a break from the previous week. It also means I don’t get a lot of attention after missing him the week before. We had hoped that this contest would fall on next weekend when I was out of town which is what Joel voted for, but over 30ish people voted for this weekend in comparison to like 5 for next, so alas, bad timing as it is, I always like to let Joel do these contests because he is always so happy when he does them, and that Happiness has a lasting effect.. He also always feels like he owes me one, so he takes extra special care of me afterwards and is really patient leading up to them. Plus I love playing the quirky games he makes and I don’t mind too much.

I have however been irritable this week, and not as supportive as I usually am, I have just been really tired and cranky, perhaps Holly’s teething has been rubbing off on me, or her lack of extra cheerfulness has been wearing, or maybe I am coming down with something, which I hope is not the case just before I have to travel. One of the things that came up last week at my mother’s group was post-partum depression. One of the mom’s has a 5 month old and is feeling blah, but thought that you could only have PPD right after the baby was born. Jennifer, the facilitator, but also the parent Education person for the hospital told us that it could occur anytime in the first year. She says it often doesn’t even look like depression at first, it could be anxiety, restlessness, insomnia. Since I have been those things I was getting worried, and asked her about it, so she asked me if I had made any changes in the last few weeks and I told her that this week I stopped breast feeding. So then we all talked about that. She warned all the moms that when you stop breast feeding all of your hormones change again, just like when you get pregnant, and it is very common to be depressed for 2 weeks after you stop breast feeding. She knew about my history and struggles with this, so she said, on top of the fact that I must be extremely hormonal, I had a lot of struggle with getting it to work, so that I must obviously be a little sad that I am not doing it any more. Which is true, I really wanted to make it to the 1 year mark, but my milk levels were just decreasing so much it hardly seemed worth the effort and was taking a lot of time for very little return on the investment. I was down to about 5 ounces a day which is barely 20% of Holly’s food intake, but it was taking me 2-3 hours a day to get that much, so when she was napping, instead of eating or getting rest or blogging, I would be pumping, the same at night, instead of going to sleep, I would have to stay up and pump, and since I was producing less, the time seemed to be too much of an impact on my life. I am assuming these hormone changes have a lot to do with the likelihood that I will now get my period. And I think some of my tiredness and achiness could also have to do with it. My left side feels ok, but my right is engorged and sore. I suppose I could pump to relieve a little pressure, but I am not sure how that all works, and if that sends my body a weird message.

So with all of that going on Jennifer told me that she thinks I am fine and that it is just hormones, but that every mom has a higher risk of getting PPD when they stop breastfeeding, due to the natural hormone change, and since I am already feeling a little blah, to simply keep an eye on it. I think a lot of it has to also do with missing my family, since it is the Holidays, so I am going to put it out of my mind, now that I literally put it out by getting it down on paper, and not think about it until after my visit to Florida. I am really looking forward to it and think it will be a lot of fun, and when I get back, Joel only has to work for like 3 days and then he has 2 weeks off, so I will get a lot of rest, relaxation and time with him, so I think the Holidays will be great.

Holly is napping now; she was very resistant and cranky. She ell asleep in the car on the way home from our playdate, for like 5 minutes and sorta woke when we got home, so I thought I would be able to easily transfer her and she would go back to sleep, but no, it took like another 90 minutes before she would take her nap, we tried three times, with eating and playing between, but she finally fell asleep around 1:30.

Our playdate was fun. We met with a special needs meet-up group. So Sarah, Zak, and Quinn were there, and it was fun to see them again, Quinn is looking great, he was putting on his socks, and was very mellow and hanging out. And we met Meredith and Griffin. Griffin is three and goes to school with Quinn. It was interesting to talk with Meredith about her transition from the regional center to the school district. She is part of Oakland unified, so it will be a little different for me, but still, she was with perseverance able to get the services she needed for her son, so I was happy to hear about that. I am thinking I will push Leela about the speech therapy, but I will wait until after I do the Evaluation with Dr. Hagerman’s Speech Therapist and get a referral, I think then it will be harder for Leela to argue. Through the Regional Center they don’t even do an eval until 18 months, and I would prefer Holly to nap have delays, so if I wait until 18 months she might be behind, but if I get someone now, it will help her to stay on track.

Tumble and tea was super busy today. This is where our group meets the first Saturday of every month. There was a birthday party, a sing-a-long, and a art session all going on at the same time and a bucket load of kids, but not a lot of other babies, so we were able to stay in the baby area and hang out, but holly got rather fussy I think from all the extra noise after less than 90 minutes and given that we are normally there for a few hours I was surprised, but we aren’t typically there in the morning, and I think her morning nap was on the horizon contributing to her mood.

Well that’s it for now, I am off to hunt for some kind of lunch.