home sweet home

feels so good to be home after a few grueling days at CHOC.  it was uncomfortable and tiring to say the least for ap and i, so i can only imagine how it must've been for owen, all the wires, nurses coming in/out every 1/2 hour, another child crying just a curtain away, machines beeping every other minute, and of course - the surgery wound pain!  his sleep pattern is completely off now.  we definitely need to work on that. but at this point, that is the least of our concerns.  just having owen home after a successful surgery is a huge sigh of relief for us.  now, it's just a matter of how well he recovers and how many kisses and hugs i can squeeze in everyday.

at choc.  he's not so happy.  we love the staff there...but yea, lets not ever go back!

my maternity leave is coming to an end pretty soon.  i still have the 6 weeks of bonding time but i know how fast 6 weeks goes by.  but i am so relieved that owen will be home with either ap or me with only a couple of hours w/pt nanny or daycare.  we haven't decided which route to go.  nanny or daycare.  i don't know how easy it will be to find someone who is willing to come to care for a baby only a couple hours a day, couple days a week.  it's a task i've been procrastinating, more like in denial that i am going back to work soon.  one thing i do oddly appreciate is owen waking up around 5am everyday to nurse.  it's a natural alarm clock that i will need to get used to since that's when i'll need to get up for work. but i'm so gonna miss sleeping in in the mornings after that 5am nursing.  ap's been just amazing, getting up to feed and play with owen allowing me to sleep in, even when i'm sure he's just as tired from working.  it's kind of a routine we naturally just fell into.  they leave to get me some breakfast and spend some daddy&me time together and wake me up around 9 to eat and nurse owen and then off he goes for his morning nap.  i'm worried my body is so used to these morning sleeps that i won't be able to function at work.  and i'm still not drinking caffeinated coffee so ugh~ no bueno!

i know i should be grateful but can i just say how annoying pumping is!!  i wish i can just nurse owen and it ends at that.  i have to pump extra milk out even after nursing, otherwise the OO's get engorged and/or supply dwindles.   this means i don't have the luxury to just fall right back asleep after nursing owen.  i have to go to my pump area, spend another 10~15 mins pumping.  so you can see how feeding/pumping process can take about 45mins~1hour every session!  it's crazy tiring and i hate it.  i feel like a cow.  i love everything about motherhood except these ridiculously large OO's and the over abundance of milk.  i'm tempted to just cut back on the demand so the supply goes down by not pumping but i've gone through the pain of clogged duct (NOT fun!) and scared my supply will vanish completely.  i don't want to deprive owen for my comfort.  at this rate, i can probably wean owen off my breast at 6 months and he'll still have enough frozen breast milk to last him an add'l 6 months....i mean, look at these! 

we have absolutely no more room in the freezer.  in fact, he had to throw away the 2 gigantore bags of milk i had pumped while at CHOC.  such a waste!

it's almost time for owen to wake up from his afternoon nap.  it's such a nice day out today - gonna take him out for a walk and stroll on over to barnes & noble!  i need to lose the last 10 lbs!  ugh - why are the last 10 lbs so hard to shed!!!  the first 25 was effortless, literallly.  i didn't move a finger.  the boobs did all the work.  sucks the last 10 requires some actual exercise on my part.