Life with my sweet baby! Warning: this is a long and probably boring post!

Someday someone is really going to have to come and show me how to affectively upload pictures onto this blog. I promise someday in the future (hopefully not too distant) I will also still be going private. I just wanted to write down some things so I don't forget them for the next time I have a baby. My life has changed so much since Jamison arrived. I couldn't have asked for a sweeter kid. He is going through a rough patch with "colic" or who knows what but he is still as great as ever. It just means we cuddle lots more, which I am okay with since that is all I want to do with him anyway. He is totally a mama's boy all ready. I seem to be the only one that can genuinely calm him down when he is beside himself with all his intense baby problems. :) I know every mom says and believes this but he is seriously amazingly cute and seems to get cuter as the days go on. Onto issues I need to remember the next time around. Disclaimer: this might be too much information for some people, so don't feel the need to read on if you don't want to hear about my ineffective boobs. :) So, no one warned me how crazy/hormonal/emotional I would feel the 1-2 weeks following his birth. It isn't one of those "if" it happens kind of things. It seems to happen to every person I have talked to about it. I felt crazy. I was crazy. I cried about everything and anything with absolutely no warning or reason. I didn't realize that this would happen. I have been fortunate to not have very much post pardum depression but there are a few things that have been a huge struggle for me. I realize some people think it's stupid to write on your blog as if it's a diary but for me this is "journaling" and I am going to write what is on my mind. Sorry to the 2-3 people that actually read this blog. :) Jamison was exactly, to the day, 1 month early. He is very healthy and we had very little complications with his health even after delivery. Him being this early created a problem from the get go with him 'latching' while trying to breastfeed. I have always known I wanted to exclusively breastfeed nearly all the time and pump and bottle feed the rest. I never had plans to have formula being used. So since he wouldn't latch, I had no choice but to pump exclusively. I was doing pretty good with that for the first week or so and then I started to notice my supply dramatically decreasing. Realizing that I was going to have to supplement formula was devistating for me. I didn't realize how important breastfeeding my baby was to me until I couldn't do it. At about 2 1/2 weeks Jamison finally developed his rooting reflex down and would try and nurse. With LOTS of patience I finall was able to nurse him. By the time he figured this out I was taking one RX, 3 different herbal supplements and pounding water to try and increase my milk supply. It was BARELY working. So I had to accept that I would not be able to just breast feed my baby and now he takes formula for more than half of what he eats. It has been so hard for me. I feel like a total failure. I realize that logically this doesn't make me any less of a mom but it sure feels like it because I know that breastmilk is better for him. I am coming to terms with it and I am going to give it my best shot to pump/nurse as much and often as I can for atleast 4 months and then we will see how burnt out I am. At this point I pump, formula bottle feed, and nurse 3 times a day (if he is cooperative and if I am lucky). He gets really mad about nursing because he knows there is a quicker way to get food. :) So that is 1 of 3 of my major depression issues. But I am telling myself that some is better than none...right?!?! :) The second, and yes I realize that this is everyone's feeling most likely, is weight. I have never weighed this much in my life. I was starting to lose weight and feel good about the direction I was going before I got pregnant. I was down about 15 pounds and doing the right things. Pregnancy got the best of me. I realize everyone gains weight but I was also banking on the facat that I would be able to lose weight due to breastfeeding, which I am not fortunate enough to be one of those people. Having a c-section has only made this worse. I got approved to exercise at 5 weeks post pardum which is insanely quick for any birth let alone a c-section. So I have started going to the gym daily except weekends. Sometimes twice a day. I have gone to swim laps twice in a week and all it does is remind me how long of a ways I have to go. I had a long ways to go even when I was down 15 pounds and now add the pregnancy weight. I realize it takes time but it is really daunting to realize how long I have to go. I know I am not the only one that feels this way, I just seem to have really skinny friends and even if they aren't the thinnest they are beautiful and the vain side of me makes me feel inadequate. I know it will come. To help this process and commitment we are throwing around running Ragnar Vegas in November. It helped so much last time to have a goal to work towards. So hopefully that will work out. Third and lastly, this isn't so much of a depression issue as much as it is terrifying and crazy. The week after Jamison was born Jeff received news that there was a job opportunity in Texas that was preesented to several people on his team at work. It is one of those things that if we want it, it's ours. No interviews, no waiting to hear back, no hoops to jump through, just ours. I feel like asking a new first time mom to make a decision like this 1-2 months post baby is not a very good idea. At first I said "no way" and as time goes on I think more and more what an adventure it would be with out little family. It would only have to be a 1 year commitment if we hated it. The problem now is that the housing market sucks and we would almost make nothing by moving. His company flew him out there and a few other couples to see what they thought. Being that I had a 5 weeks old I was not about to leave him or take him on a plane so we stayed home. He had a great time and loved the site where he would be working at. So we counter offered his company with a larger moving package/salary bump, to which we are almost certain they will tell us is too high. In that case we will be staying here in K-town living near famliy and prepapring ourselves, within the next year or two, to upgrade houses and settle a little more permanently. So there you have it. Life is still pretty amazingly great. I still can't believe I am a mom and have the best little man ever. We are blessing him July 1st and I can't wait for that to come. I try not to paint my life as blissful even when I see it that way because life is hard but totally worth it. Now that I have been awake since 3:30 and it's now 5am I guess I will try and get some sleep, since that is hard to come by these days. Don't worry, I still know I am very blessed that these are my only real, personal struggles right now. Sorry for the long post.