Day 5: Pictures and my brain is mush...

Uh...uh.....uhhhhhh.....

That's kind of what my brain is doing right now. Going on 6 straight nights of little sleep will do that to you, I suppose. Last night Harmony let me sleep from, let's see....12:00-12:45, then 2:00-3:00, and then from 4:30-8:30. The first part of the night was really rough - I'm still trying to figure her out. For the most part she's pretty easy, she takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r to eat, as she keeps falling asleep. I am going to do "Babywise" as best I can with her and for the first 10 days, they instruct you to do just one thing: make sure the baby gets a full feeding every time she nurses. That's what is the biggest challenge, making sure she does 20-25 min. on each side. It's working for the most part - she seems to thrive on that and is naturally falling into a feed-wake-sleep every 2-3 hours pattern already.

But last night, she woke up with her little fists flailing and trying to eat them. =) So naturally I thought she was hungry, right? Hmmmm...I put her on the breast and she just fights it and fights it - kind of like when you put a pacifier in a baby's mouth and they KNOW it's not the real thing and they just do not want that at ALL. So I fought back the tears as I didn't know WHAT she wanted, tried everything I could think of and she just cried & cried. Finally I wrapped her tight and just rocked her with the pacifier, and that is when she (after about 45 min) fell asleep for 3 more hours. In the meantime, DD3 woke up (3am in the morning!) and wanted to sit with me right when Harmony had just fallen asleep. It's always fun to figure out how to juggle the newborn (aaack! DON'T wake her up!!!!) while nurturing the other little siblings too so they don't feel rejected.

Today DH is taking the 4 middle kids (3,5,6,8) to the beach while DD10, DS1, and newborn stay home with me. I think it'll be OK cuz DS1 naps for 3-4 hours so I can still sleep then, and DD10 is no problem. It should be a nice, quiet, HOT day.

Have you ever heard of a postpartum belly band? I stayed up, ahem, a BIT too late last night (thus the only sleep I got was 12-12:45am) reading all about it and I am quite excited to try one! At first I was like yeah, RIGHT - binding your belly to make it thinner? What kind of crock is that? Kind of like those weight loss "patches" you put on your skin to lose weight, it's kind of obvious that type of thing is just so fake. But after reading more in depth about it, it actually does makes sense, and I am thinking even if it helps my back I will consider it to be a success. My back is KILLING me after the whole switch from heavy tummy to heavy boobs, and nursing for hours and hours and hours makes me stiff and sore in weird places.

I've been weighing myself every day and it's really fun! I love that old familiar rush of knowing I'm eating well and watching the scale drop...I can't wait to go running again. So I'm going to document my postpartum weightless on here for future reference. With Jack I documented it just a little and I wish I had done more - it's fun to compare.

Top Pregnancy Weight: 162
3 Days PP: 154, 8 lbs released
4 Days PP: 152, 10 lbs released
5 Days PP: 150, 12 lbs released

My long-term goal is my pre-pregnancy weight of 127. I know if I stick to raw and exercise I'll be there in no time. With Jack it took me a LONG time and I am pretty sure it's because I didn't combine raw AND exercise. I also ate alot of avocado's which I don't think I'll be doing this time, simply because I eat ALOT of watermelon, cherries, smoothies...lots of other fresh fruit around this time of year. My 10-day goal is to get into the 140's, which I think is definitely going to happen since this morning I was at 150.0. It would be awesome to reach 145 by 2 weeks, but we'll see. I'm not putting demands on myself, just "ideals" - and knowing that I'm eating well is enough, since I can't really exercise just yet.

Oh, and my favorite pregnancy capris were loose on me yesterday!! That was a super nice surprise because I wasn't planning on that at ALL. They were loose everywhere, but I noticed it mostly in the thighs and butt. Yay! I knew my stomach would go down, but I'm noticing that my bra strap is loose (36D strap was tight around my torso during pregnancy just a week ago) too, and the back fat that was there in excess when I had Jack, isn't really there this time.

It's interesting because looking back, with Jack I was about 90% raw and I thought for sure that the labor/delivery would be easier. AND the recovery - that I would heal faster, lose the weight faster, etc. With Harmony, I was about 75% raw and towards the end, about 60% raw - and the delivery was MUCH easier (my absolute best by far!) and way way faster, and now the weight seems to be melting off quicker. Hmmm...maybe it's just because I'm tan so I feel like I look better, LOL! Speaking of which, I was cold yesterday and my nanny took the kids to the library so I laid in the sun during Jack's nap. Which is all fine and good, I have a nice base tan so I don't burn much BUT I didn't reckon on the fact that my boobs are alot bigger. So, they aren't as covered in my bikini top and.....yeah, I now have a LOVELY red burn across the front of both boobs. Real nice when you're trying to figure out nursing. Dumb girl.

Today is day #3 of (almost) 100% raw! Yesterday I got quite famished right at 5:30 and wolfed down an entire bag of Caeser salad, complete with the croutons, cheese, dressing, and bacon bits. Not a super good choice, but at least it was salad and it really wasn't that much of the extras...they come in these tiny little baggies. After that I had lots of raisins and then two small avocados made into chocolate pudding. Around midnight I realized I needed to eat something and since I hadn't made my green smoothie yet, I blended up an entire bunch of spinach with 3 cups of water, some honey, and some bee pollen, and drank it all up. Not the tastiest thing to say the least, it was kind of like drinking grass, but I knew it was soooo good for me and anything to help with the healing/weight loss process I'm willing to do! I knew if I put fruit in it I wouldn't be able to down that much and I wanted to get a whole bunch of greens in for the day.

The birth story is really long - wonderful and fun to think about, but long. So I've been putting it off, sorry! I'll get to it when I can.....maybe I'll have to start on it and just do half at a time or something. Oh my gosh, I just think about it and get chills...you know how sometimes you wish you could just hop in the store, run to the doctor's, have your baby, and come home and hour later? That's exactly how it was - soooo crazy! We hopped in the car, the contractions turned from almost-can't-handle-it to transition, and bam, 20 minutes later we had the baby. If I knew every birth would be like that, my gosh, I would have a million kids! J/K but seriously, it was so wonderful to see how God answered my prayers and make it happen so swiftly I barely even realized what was happening, let alone had time to be afraid.

Mmmmm that's enough, I better stop before I write the entire birth story, LOL!