Category: Health

Mario had work to do in the morning. So I lazied in bed after he left, fell asleep again, and woke up around 10am with the girls. I fed them both then Aly watched Noggin while Emily cooed in her bassinet. I finally had the chance to make myself some French toast and decaf coffee. I started cleaning up a bit. It was the first time I could actually freely walk around with little to no pain in my abdomen. Mary was doing my laundry. I swept and was gonna mop, but she didn’t let me. She practically cleaned the whole house, including my closet where Mario dumped everything after starting his newest project: moving all the wires, game equipment, phone, etc. into our bedroom closet, which is right behind the living room wall. He wanted nothing on the TV wall but the TV and wanted to eliminate the entertainment center so hence the reason he was doing all this.

Big Mario had the girls so I started putting my new pack of 316 pictures into my albums when I was at their house, finally. I’m gonna need another album. Now I want to go to Ross to get one. Too bad I can’t drive yet.

Jorge almost smacked me for carrying the stack of albums back to the house when I was done. I got dressed, since everyone was coming over for a cookout. I’m looking a little less chunky, although I’m still wearing my maternity pants since my incision still feels sore when I apply pressure. The good thing is, the pants are maternity and post-maternity so you can’t tell ;). I kept sneaking peeks in to make sure there weren’t any shoes on the sofas LOL.

I swaddled Emily up really well and joined everyone outside. I had a house-full of boys; my kids, the cousins and the neighborhood boys were all playing video games in the living room. Then Sammy linked his Xbox with ours from my bedroom, so there were more boys in there.

Mario worked till late, so he missed the whole bar-b-q. Circuit City was closing, so his boss was buying the displays and equipment for cheap and the guys were helping him disassemble everything and move it to the shop. It took forever.

I came inside when everyone was going home. Mario called that he was on his way home an hour later, and would I like something from the store since he was buying beer. I’d been craving a pint of ice cream (I swear I crave more things after pregnancy than during and that’s bad!). I’d been eating very well just to have that pint. He gets home and all he has is beer in his hands. He forgot about my ice cream :(. He always does that!!

I’ve decided to stop breastfeeding, as guilty as I feel, since my back and chest hurt so much and no matter how much I pump, it doesn’t make a difference. I even put Emily to the breast, which almost made me chew off my arm since she can’t latch on well, and nothing. I feel so awful about this, but my body feels miserable. I can feel the glares and hear the rude, unsolicited advice already.

Thurs., Mar. 5th – Mario didn’t officially apologize at all that morning. It was one of those mornings when the alarm went off, I turned it off and woke him up and went back to sleep before Emily or Alaethia woke up. He texted me at noon to ask how Emily’s belly button was doing—to break the ice, I suppose. I said it was fine and that I had already paid all the bills we’d planned on paying with the income tax refund. After a few exchanges about that he said he loved me and “I’m sorry”–3 times. My hormones were haywire again and I took a few deep breaths to keep from tearing up. I can’t be mad at that man for long these days.
Mary picked up some necessities for me, like pads. That’s what I hate about not being able to drive: I can’t go anywhere and do things for myself *sigh*.

Mario texted me after work that Jorge and Adan were coming over since Maggie left Jorge behind LOL. Our new modem came in and Adan installed it for us. The guys chilled out inside a while and then of course went outside to drink. If I remember correctly, Maggie came over later on to chill out for a bit and pick up Jorge.

Fri., Mar. 6th – I actually slept semi-well and felt much more alert than I had all week.

I spent most of the day with Emily and when I wasn’t with her I was pumping away in the bathroom while Mom watched the girls. I couldn’t stand the pain in my back from being so full of milk that day. It wasn’t as bad as the first days, when my back and chest felt like an elephant had stepped on me and I couldn’t breathe, but it was still really painful. I still couldn’t understand how I was so full if I was still only pumping out 1 ounce from each boob. I felt like I was carrying around a bra-full of bricks, literally. My right breast was especially lumpy and in pain.

I tried tidying up a bit and Mario called to tell me he was on his way and if I wanted him to pick anything up for dinner. The boys wanted Burger King, of course, but I wanted shrimp so I asked him to get me a shrimp plate from Starlight. I always want shrimp and complain that there’re only burger places here, but hello? Starlight’s been here for years! I just recently remembered. Still, we really have to stop doing that, ordering take-out! But it’s so hard to cook these days. Usually Emily only wants to be with me and its tough getting things done.

We planned on going to Jorge and Maggie’s, because we didn’t want to spend another boring Friday at home. So we ate quickly and went over there with Emily and Jaylen. Eenan never wants to go and Mom offered to watch Alaethia, and I was glad because I was afraid she’d act up like the last time.

We got there and said hello to Nani, Tony Sr., and Dinah was visiting from Austin. We sat with her inside a while and laughed at Jorge and Boys’ arguments. It was their boss’ wife’s birthday. They were having a get-together and we were invited. Mario really didn’t want to go, mainly because the last time they went to one of their bar-b-q’s Mario and Adan were politely kicked out (long story having nothing to do with them). I really didn’t want to go because my boobs felt awful. I’d never felt such pain in my breasts with any of the other babies. That, and I was not dressed for a party at all. I was in shorts, flip flops, and a peasant top that I was trying to hide my enormous boobs in. I had nothing nice to wear even if I could fully fit into my old clothes. Eventually, Jorge managed to convince us so we dropped off Jaylen with Mom since he’d fallen asleep about 10 seconds after we got to Jorge’s house. We only took Emily with us.

We had a pretty good time, even though I did feel awkward and underdressed at first. The food they were bar-b-q’ing was great and Emily was a doll and slept most of the time we were there. I even attended my first Adult Novelty party! I didn’t know what to expect, but it was actually really interesting. I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all, and we had a few laughs.

Mario watched Emily towards the end of the party when she woke up for a feeding and I took her with me afterward. The girls were all swooning over her. I didn’t have to carry her the remainder of the time we were there; she was being passed around!

We came home shortly after that. I was desperate for sleep but I had a lot to do, like ready Emily’s bottles, redress my incision, and pump myself because I felt like crap. I felt so awful I had to sleep with cold packs in my sports bra. If I didn’t know any better I’d say I developed Mastitis, except that I was already on antibiotics so I wasn’t getting the fevers. I didn’t know how much longer I could take it.

Mon., Mar. 2nd – I woke up feeling better physically, even though I was still worried about my incision becoming infected. I felt really guilty about Mario getting to work late, and although he did get a little chewed up about it, he didn’t hold it against me. I had my post-natal follow-up with Dr. C. that day and since I was already going to be there I took Eenan in since he’d had a fever and sore throat over the weekend. Sonia dropped Jaylen off after school and picked Emily and I up to go to the doctor. Alaethia threw a fit because she wanted to go to the doctor, too, but had to stay behind with Mom.

I couldn’t carry Emily around in the car seat because it’s so heavy, so I was glad Sonia stayed and got down with us. It didn’t take long at all, surprisingly, before they called us in to the vitals room. I weighed 129, so I’d lost 11 lbs. since I’d had Emily. Emily weighed 6 lbs. 12 oz. I was a little shocked by how “much” she’d lost, even though it’s normal. But I don’t remember the other kids actually losing any weight at my first post-natal visit.

Dr. C. was busy with OB patients, but ran in, took a seat while he held Emily, and I showed him my incision. He said yes, it was indeed infected but it didn’t rip open the way I thought I had. He said to continue cleaning it and covering it up like I had been and prescribed antibiotics. He handed Emily to me and let me know another doctor would come in to check Eenan. The new doctor was Dr. P. I’d never met him before. He checked Eenan and didn’t find a thing wrong with him. Eenan said, “I told you so, Mom!” I thought he was just saying that because he didn’t want to get swabbed for Strep. He said he’d be calling in a prescription for him anyway since he had a fever and sore throat over the weekend.

As I was giving my payment I ran into Laura and asked her about the numbness and tingling I’d felt the night before. She said she’d ask Dr. C., because they were odd symptoms. He said he didn’t think it was a big deal because I hadn’t had any more since that time, but to give them a call or go in if I felt them again. He looked at my left arm, where I still had a large bruise from where they’d drawn blood at the hospital, and was alarmed at how purple and red the area was. He said the tingling in that arm may have been because the bruise was infected, but I think it was just from carrying Emily’s car seat (Sonia had gone back to the waiting room so I had no choice but to carry it on my own. Laura said it was okay, though, just to not overdo it).

It took forever at the pharmacy and I was really pissed because they never called in Eenan’s prescription! We were there over an hour and I felt really bad for making Sonia wait so long so I just left it alone. When I called again later and when Yadira went to pick it up for me after work, they still hadn’t called anything in! I was so pissed, not to mention worried because Eenan had his TAKS test the next day and that’s all I needed: for him to be overcome with Strep and have to miss his test and re-take just like he did last year.

I actually got to make dinner that night, lasagna! The kiddos behaved perfectly while I worked and it was delicious :).

We (Mario, Aly, Emmy amd me; the boys had school the next day and were asleep with Mary watching them) went to Jorge and Maggie’s that night. I think it was my first night over there since I’d had Emily. I felt a little awkward, since Maggie’s family was over. I felt like I was intruding. Aide and Belle came over too and we sat in the living room with the girls. Alaethia started acting up, following Belle and the other kids everywhere and getting into everything, so I was quickly getting frustrated. Alaethia almost got squashed by a desk and was rescued by Maggie’s cousin’s little boy (he’d been shaking the cage of a poor Siamese hamster about an hour before). I tried being patient as possible, but that didn’t last long and I texted Mario that I wanted to come home.

Tues., Mar. 3rd – Night 2 of sleeping with Emily in the crook of my arm paid off, somewhat: I slept for 5 hours. I felt better than most of the other days when I woke up. What wasn’t so good was the reason I woke up; Emily was doing that weird gagging again. I can’t help but panicking when she does that, even though they did tell me it has to do with her neurological system and so on. If she kept doing it, I’d have to tell Dr. C. about it.

I actually got up to make Mario breakfast. Eenan came in and told us he’d gotten sick that morning, with diarrhea. My poor dude. I was more than sure it was nerves due to the TAKS test, but I still prayed and prayed that he’d be okay.

The phone started ringing around 9am. To my horror, the stupid phone wasn’t working correctly. Someone would call and the phone would automatically hang up. I started panicking, wondering if it was Eenan calling from the nurse’s office because he got worse. Mary had called to my cell phone as I was thinking about that and told me she’d called the school just in case and no, Eenan, nor any other 4th grader, had been to the nurse or office that morning. Whew.

I took advantage of the girls’ late morning and cleaned my incision carefully. I was going to pump but felt too tired. I figured I still had some time before I became engorged. I fed Emily and hoped to catch a few Z’s with her but Fed Aly woke up. I made her breakfast and had her sit at the table to eat. She took a few bites and decided she was done. When I had my back turned (I was changing Emmy’s diaper) she threw her whole plate, including her fork, into the trash. She got a scolding and soon after she started asking for juice. She always does that when she doesn’t want to eat; she drinks to make up for it. I told her she couldn’t have any juice because she threw her food away, she could have water. So what does she do? She took a handful of her bacon and eggs out of the trash, put them on her old paper plate, began to eat it and asked, “Now can I have juice?” She’s really something!

I waited all day for a call from Eenan but never got one. The kid who did call was Jaylen. The nurse said he’d had a tummy ache. I called around looking for someone to pick him up. I hated not being able to drive myself anywhere. I didn’t want to call Sonia, because I still felt bad that she’d had to wait so long with us at the pharmacy the day before, but Mary called her and she ended up being the one to bring him home. When Jaylen got here he asked if he could go outside and play. I said no, he was sick, right? So he needed to go to bed and get better. And the truth came out: he said, “But I’m not sick! My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore!” Grr. I lectured him about how it’s not right to lie to get picked up and how he inconvenienced Tia Sonia, who would now have to go back and pick Eenan up at 3, also. He was genuinely remorseful and went to my room to rest.

I took a nap from 1-3 with Emily while Mom watched Alaethia, which wasn’t a good idea. I woke up with a headache from the phone ringing and hearing Alaethia scream. I got up and pumped while I read the last few pages of New Moon. I pumped again about an hour later and was thrilled to have actually made 3 ounces of milk for once. Mario got home with my 316 pics I’d ordered from Walgreens online. We went to Dollar General with the middle kiddos while Mom stayed with Emily and Mary had Eenan. We picked up some McDonald’s on the way home. I really need to quit doing that—eating fast food–although I got a chicken sandwich. We went over to eat at Mary’s where we ate with the whole family. I felt perfectly at ease and just in total bliss at that moment, surrounded by the people I love. I felt like I needed to pinch myself.

When we came back home I blogged a bit, fed, changed and gave Emily a little washcloth bath (she hated every minute of it). Then I showered and pumped again. When I was ready to go to bed at 12am, she woke up and didn’t go back to sleep till 2 am. Then she was up from 5-7. I was beginning to notice a pattern.