Jaminite Adventures: October 2008

Today marks the three month anniversary of my pulmonary embolism. I woke up thinking about it this morning. I still get panicked when I dwell on it for very long. I think that I could have died. I think about my children being raised by someone else. I think about my husband having to take care of a 10 day old baby by himself. I think about the pain I experienced, worse than any pain I have ever experienced before. Many times while it was happening I wished that I could just stop breathing because then it wouldn't hurt so much. There were even many times in the 2 weeks after it happened that I wished the Lord would have just let me die because the recovery was so difficult.

I still have to take narcotics about once a week for pain relief. Thats much better than it used to be. At two weeks past I was taking them round the clock. At one month after I had cut back to 3 a day. At two months I was taking them about 3-4 times a week. I think I still tire easier than I normally would have at this point postpartum but it is improving quickly. I find myself having to catch my breathe at wierd times like when I'm just sitting doing paper work but I hear that isn't unusual.

There are so many things it will affect long term. At three months old, my baby is just now getting 100% breastmilk. Until now, even though I knew I had plenty of milk, I still needed the rest that letting dh give her a bottle gave me. I don't like the fact that she had to be on formula for the first three months of her life. What repercussions will that bring later on for her? Who knows, maybe nothing. Many people these days have done just fine on only formula. I just never imagined that I would ever have to use it. She sleeps in a crib. My babies usually sleep with me. I started out that way with her but because of the narcotics I started putting her in a crib next to me. After I was able to cut back on the narcotics she would sleep all night whether I slept with her or not but I can't anymore. If I want her to sleep all night it has to be in her crib. If she sleeps with me she wakes up 3 or 4 times to eat.

She is such a sweet baby! So happy and easy to care for. Granted she likes to nurse about every half hour and gets gas tummy aches when I eat something that doesn't agree with us but she is not a colicky baby by any means. She really likes her fists these days and has teeth coming in the very near future. Several people think I should put her on cereal so that she doesn't eat so often but with our family's sensitivies towards rice and oatmeal I think I will wait until she is a bit older and just deal with the frequent eating for now.

As to my last post about Zunedownloads, after sending a threatening email to three different people I finally got a refund. I would have preferred the download and would still like to join but I don't trust that it won't happen again.