Yeah, by the way, she has no "Grandma" or "Grandpa"in case you were wondering :)
But she has an Oma, and a Boppi, and a Rae Rae, and a PopPop, and a MumMum, and a Yeti! Really, variety is the spice of life.
Then I can't remember when everyone else came, but they just kept comin'!! My grandparents, his grandparents, his dad, his great aunts, my aunts. Cousins, friends...
G
"G"
Aunt JoJo
Unka Keith
I have an embarrassing lack of photos of all this visiting actually. I was busy accepting all the compliments on Wynne's behalf ("Why yes thank you, she is very very cute") and Wynne was busy sleeping in everybody's arms. There are a lot of photos on Facebook, I bet, and on other people's computers. Anyway, we saw a lot of people!
And they brought us A LOOOOOOOTTA FOOOOOD!!! For this I will be eternally grateful. My mom brought a cooler every time she visited. And she visited a whole bunch in the beginning (she still insists upon seeing her first daughter's first daughter every two weeks or so). She helped me get sleep in the beginning, she helped me eat healthy. She CLEANED MY HOUSE!! She made sure I did normal stuff, like taking a baby to the grocery store:
Her first outing not to the pediatrician
She couldn't help us not get thrush though. If you hate someone and you know how to do voodoo, give them thrush. It's a totally harmless yeast infection that breastfeeding mothers and breastfed babies commonly pass back and forth between each other. Common, right, but not one of my friends or family had ever had it! So while there was stuff online, I had no firsthand advice. My milk wasn't coming in, I was convinced she wasn't latching properly, and I was bleeding profusely out of my boobs. I had to be doing something wrong, right?!?!
I don't want to rant too long, because I could go on and on about how I emailed La Leche League (I couldn't call, I started crying every time I talked about breastfeeding...) and no one emailed me back, or how the pediatrician and the nurses gave different instructions on the medicine, etc... but the one thing I do want to rant about is how much EVERYTHING says "Your nipples might be sore for up to two weeks if you're breastfeeding."
Just let me compose myself, 9 months later and I'm still so angry.
See, I feel like this is part of the reason why Wynne and I never had the successful breastfeeding relationship that I had dreamed of having...
Everything you read, everything everywhere, and everyone you talk to will tell you that your nipples will be sore, and so every time I was in pain, I assumed I had to just suck it up because it was going to get better. Maybe something somewhere should say "Yeah, your nipples may be sore, but if it feels like needles are shooting out of them every time your baby suckles, that's not normal." And maybe even "You shouldn't feel like a failure if this happens."
Yeah, that would have been nice.
Anyway, so pain and bleeding caused me to not feed her every time - we supplemented with formula, pretty early on - and so less and less breastmilk came in, we had to give her more and more formula... To sum up, some women just don't produce enough milk, maybe I'm one of them, but I'll never know because I couldn't feed her the way I wanted to because I was in so much pain, and I thought I just had to suffer through it. I got little help from those who could have or should have offered it.
That being said I got oodles and oodles of support from my family and friends, which helped emotionally, and Wynne and I still bonded, she didn't care if I was cringing or crying :)
Also, importantly, thankfully, this only affected me while I breastfed, I was perfectly fine the rest of the time. How could I not be?! We found out Wynne makes this face when she poops:
And this face when she gets a bath:
While I was still at home on maternity leave, we had our first photoshoot, which I wanted to have so that I could have super stupid-adorable pictures for the baby shower thank you cards. She was super cooperative, so I think we might have a mini-diva on our hands...
And some outtakes:
"Come a little closer, buddy, I'll teach you to take advantage of a helpless infant!! This is extortion!!!"
"Uh oh, Ma, you weren't particularly fond of this blanket were you? That was a juicy one!"
"Are we done yet?!?!"
And a little schmoozing after her set with the extras:
Yes, you're not imagining things, Bailey is terrified of being within two feet of Wynne, like she'll explode any second or something. She actually got pretty fat there in the beginning because she stress eats, and I was too busy to pay attention to how much food she was getting- I would just fill up her bowl if it was empty... I'm awful.
Anyway, next up, Wynne and Kyle do nothing but sleep! And Wynne starts making cute noises and smiling!
