Week 27

Hello all and Welcome to Post-Natal Week 27!

I remember while I was pregnant other women warning me of "Pregnancy Brain" which is basically being forgetful. My birth class teacher actually said that it can effect women after they have a baby for as long as a year. I scoffed at this idea, thinking I was one of the lucky ones that wasn't afflicted with this annoying byproduct of growing another human.

I was wrong.

Forgetfulness is now something I deal with on a daily basis and it is driving me a little insane. Unfortunately I notice it most often at work. It usually surfaces as I am changing activities. I will forget what it was that I was supposed to do. It also happens when I have an "Aha!" moment, I smile to myself about that thought, and then it is quickly forgotten in a matter of a few more moments; sometimes never to be re-thought again. I have taken to writing lists to remind myself of things I wanted to accomplish during the day. This is not something I like to admit or like to do. There have been many times when I come up with a cute little anecdote that I want to mention to all of you but it leaves my mind by the time I get to write something down. Do you know how many times that has happened? Well, me neither, but it's all the time I can tell you that! My theory about the post-pregnancy brain is lack of sleep. I haven't done any research (read: Google) but I'm sure that lack of sleep has to be the real culprit. I know some professional probably mentions hormone imbalance too, but I really think my forgetfulness is linked to Estella just insisting on eating at 2:30 every morning... and then possibly a few more times. How dare she! :-)

Changing Estella's diaper, obviously something we do quite often. She doesn't mind at all. I try to engage her whenever we have a diaper change experience. I usually do a quick, sing-song thing and say "Naked Baby" in a high pitched voice. She really likes this and it makes her laugh, which in turn makes me smile and laugh. So earlier this week I was changing her diaper on my bed, which is something I do every morning because she sleeps in our room. We were doing the whole "Naked Baby" thing as a distraction when switching diapers. In the middle of the change she just lets loose and wets the bed like no ones business. I usually wait a little while in the morning before I change her diaper because I want her to have the time she needs to release the overnight wave. Apparently I didn't wait long enough this particular morning. Well, I'm loudly suggesting to Eric that he get off the bed because she has peed all over and because it is so early in the morning it seems to take an entire 5 seconds for him to comprehend exactly what I am saying. Because I haven't even finished fully changing her, I only covered her up in an attempt to save my sheets and mattress, she is put safely on the floor while Eric and I try to quickly take the sheets off the bed and dry the mattress. I don't have any Borax in the house so I put some powder over the wet area in a hope that it will draw the moisture away from my mattress. Estella is just babbling to herself during this whole process. I stand up to find that my pajama bottoms are soaked. Oh well. The sheets needed to be changed anyway.

Estella is growing up so fast, even though she is only 27 weeks. It's amazing the difference in her face and body, her attention span and knowledge. I can see her learning. I know when she finally "gets it". Small stuff now, but it's all building toward more complicated and intricate skills. I just love watching it. I love watching her. This week I went through some of the updates that I wrote when I was pregnant. There was such insecurity in many of those ramblings. It was insecurity that fueled my feelings of nervousness and selfishness. I was scared of giving up my old pre-baby life. What I didn't realize was what I was going to gain. It's easy to say the words "baby" and think that it holds some real weight. I held other babies, loved other babies, swooned over other babies but I never felt that mother-child bond before. Completely intangible, ridiculously difficult to explain to someone that doesn't have a child, but there nonetheless. That bond made my selfishness concerns go away immediately. I completely forgot about them until I re-read how I was feeling while pregnant. It seems so petty now, but those concerns were real at the time. I remember them now. But that lovely post-baby forgetfulness helped me there. I guess it's not always such a negative thing.

That's about all for this week. Estella has her Dr.'s appointment on Monday. I am not looking forward to the shots, but I can't wait to see how much she weighs and how long she is. This is very exciting to me. She seems to have gained weight nicely the last 2 months I wouldn't be surprised if she is over 15 pounds. We'll see.

Love to you all,

Desiree