Mother's Day

My first mother's day was a joyful and exciting celebration.  I was so excited in fact, that I couldn't sleep the night before... and our little buddy Henry was a bit restless, so that didn't help!

On Saturday 5/12/12 we went out to a beautiful dinner at the Waterfront with my parents.  On Sunday 5/13/12 we celebrated mother's day with mass at Newman, and dinner with my parents.  Henry made me a beautiful collage of sweet pictures of him, and I was treated to breakfast in bed, and dinner made by LJ.  It was truly a wonderful day!  

Sometimes it is hard to believe that I am somebody else's mom... Henry's mom!  He is such an amazing blessing and motherhood is a wonderful gift.  

Our little family- dinner at the Waterfront

Moms and Henry

Sustar fam with Horth fam

funny faces

Mother's day photo shoot

sweet Henry! 

look at that smile

the many faces of Henry...

Fixin' for Hixon

I have been so excited to take Henry on a hike, and we finally got to do a real hike on Mother's day weekend.  Henry did great, and I was not surprised, as we did many hikes together in Colorado.
Enjoy the pictures from 5/12/12!

Family of 3

Hank and LJ 

The vista 

Stretch!

Enjoying the view

Nursing in nature

Hiker baby! 

Henry at 2 months

As I write this post Henry is 10 weeks old!  I know I always say this, but its hard to believe that my little man is already 2 months old.  On Wednesday May 9th Henry had his 2 month check up.  As we know, the little man is growing like a weed!  On that day he was 11 lbs 14 oz, and now a week and a half later, he is over 12 lbs!  He is in the 55th percentile for his weight.  When Henry was born he was 20 inches, and now he is 22 inches.  He is in the 26th percentile for his height, so not a super tall guy, but he sure is cute!  At his 2 week appointment Henry's head circumference was 36.29 cm and at 2 months it is now 40 cm.  He is absolutely a growing boy!
Henry continues to be a social little man.  He loves to talk, gurgle, coo and make all kinds of crazy noises.  He is very communicative and will intentionally try to mimic noises that LJ and I make.  Sometimes when we say "hello" to him, it sounds like he is saying hello back.  Sometimes it also sounds like he is saying "mom".  I guess in the grand scheme of things, it won't be too long until he actually does!
Henry recently discovered how much fun it is to be in his play gym on the floor and bat at the objects above him.  He loves to kick his legs and wail his arms as he coos and talks to the objects.  Henry does not love to be on his tummy.  LJ and I have been admittedly bad at being consistent with giving Henry tummy time.  At Henry's 2 month check up the pediatrician said we need to make sure that Henry is getting 15 minutes of tummy time a day.  That seems a little excessive to me, but I've made an effort to make sure Henry gets tummy time at least a few times a day... but it is not 15 minutes!
Henry has also been drooling up a storm.  I think that teething will be in his near future, as his shirts are soaked around the collar!
Some of Henry's favorite things are being outside, going on walks, staring at the ceiling fans, talking to me or LJ, getting his diaper changed, taking a bath, playing in his play gym, listening to music, and being really cute.
Henry's night-time sleeping has gotten a lot better.  Henry is now starting to sleep for 4-5 hours at a time, which is marvelous!  The only thing is that Henry does not dig sleeping in his pack-n-play in our bedroom, and much prefers to sleep in his swing.  So Henry has been sleeping in the swing mostly, but we still try to put him in the pack-n-play for at least part of the night.  I've also been trying to let Henry sleep in his crib for at least one nap a day, but that hasn't been super successful, as most of his naps in his crib are about 20 minutes.
Henry is just more and more amazing every day.  He is also getting more fun, opinionated, and interactive everyday.  Everyday I feel like we get to do something new together and its exciting to start being able to share the things I love to do with him like hiking, and yoga and soon swimming!  We've been so lucky to have lots of play dates with other new babies and it has been so wonderful for me to visit with lots of mamas.  Henry is an amazing little man!

Hanging out with Dad

Cuddling with mama

Sweet little man

Sometimes we call Henry "drooly-ooly" 

Hanging out with Grandma Yak in Chicago

I'm 2 months old! 

Happy guy! 

Loss Family Blog: Harper meets Henry

Loss Family Blog: Harper meets Henry: It seems fitting that Harper and Henry were born exactly 7 weeks apart, both at 10:28 on a Thursday morning, both by Tracey Bolden.  Henry's...

Visit to Chicago

One of the nice things about moving back to the Midwest is that we are now so much closer to the majority of of our family.  We now live within a days worth of driving to most of our immediate family.  Chicago is only 5 hours away now, compared to 20 hours when we lived in Colorado.
May 4-6th we made our first mini road-trip with Henry to Chicago to visit LJ's family.  We stayed with LJ's sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Patrick, and their son, Liam. Also visiting Chicago to meet Henry were LJ's brother, Joe, sister-in-law Megan, and daughters, Siena and Libby.  LJ's parents were also in town and LJ's sister Liz recently moved to Chicago from Atlanta.  It was almost the whole Su-crew!

Hugs from big cousin, Siena.

Meeting his cousins, Siena and Libby. 

With Aunt Megan, who is going to have a baby girl in July! 

Reading with Libby.

Henry snoozing on Papa.

I love meeting my Sustar cousins! 

With Grandma Yak .

Henry and his Aunt Mary.

Henry and his cousin Libby.  Libby loved Henry so much, she could not stop talking about him! 

Henry meeting his Aunt Liz.

Siena brought Henry a favorite toy giraffe from home. 

Handsome guys.

Henry with his Uncle Joe and cousin Libby.

Henry and big cousin, Liam.  

Henry's discussion

I apologize that I've been really bad about updating the blog lately... we've been busy!  Hopefully today and in the next few days I'll get a chance to update you on all that's been going on.
Here's a sweet video of Henry from when he was 6-7 weeks old doing some talking.

The Yeast Beast

Disclaimer:  If you don't want to read about breastfeeding and boobs, don't read this!

Thrush:  the yeast beast.  I have Maggie to thank for that clever nickname.  Its been almost two and a half weeks since we started treating the thrush.  Thrush seems to be the gift that keeps on giving... except that you don't want it.  =(
On April 13th we went into the pediatrician's office because I was concerned about Henry having a cold.  While we were there the pediatrician examined him and asked me if his tongue is usually white.  I said yes, that it had been white for a while, but I just assumed that this was leftover milk from breastfeeding so often.  The pediatrician then determined that this was thrush and prescribed Henry Nystatin.  He also asked me if I had been having breast pain, but I said no, because at the time I didn't think what I was experiencing was necessarily "pain".  After talking to a friend, and doing a little bit of online research I realized that I was also infected with thrush, but just assumed that itching, burning sensation I was having was just a normal part of breastfeeding.  So with new information in hand we started an "aggressive" treatment of thrush.
We started with applying Nystatin on Henry's tongue 4 times a day, or after every day time feeding.  We first started using our fingers to do this, but then switched to using a Q-tip.  Lucky for us Henry happens to love Nystatin!  He takes it like a champ and actually enjoys when I apply it to his tongue!
After each feeding I would wipe off my breasts and apply a solution of one cup water, 1 tbsp vinegar.  I would then try to let them "air-out" as much as I could without giving the neighbors a free show.  I would also apply Mother Love's Diaper Rash and Thrush cream several times a day until I ran out of it.  I only had samples that I had gotten at Belly Bliss in Denver, where I used to go for prenatal fitness, yoga, and birth classes.  I really liked the Mother Love thrush cream because you didn't have to wash it off before a feeding, and it is olive oil based, so it just smells and feels really good.  I still continued to use my cloth breast pads but just changed them out after each feeding and washed them in really hot water with a few tbsps of vinegar.
After a few days with not a lot of progress I changed my cloth breast pads out for disposable ones and asked my midwife what else I could do.  She suggested applying Clotrimazole 1% on my nipples after feedings 4 times a day, but making sure to wipe it off before feeding Henry.  The first time I applied it I made sure to wipe it off well before feeding Henry, but even with doing so he still acted weird about it, and I could tell that he didn't really like the taste and knew that something was different.  This scared me a little bit so I decided just to use it 2 times a day.  About a week ago I felt like the yeast was taking over my whole body,  so my midwife prescribed me 2 pills of Diflucan to get rid if the yeast "down there".  Throughout this process I've been taking pro-biotics and trying to be careful about what I eat, but not completely depriving myself of all sugars and dairy.
On Tuesday last week Henry's tongue started looking better, but I felt like my breast pain was worse.  I decided to call the lactation consultant for some help.  She asked me if Henry still had thrush on his tongue, to which I told her yes, but that it was looking better.  She suggested that we talk with the pediatrician again, because after a week and a half of treatment she thought it should be gone.  On Wednesday after my 6 week check-up (which went great, and I've been cleared to exercise again, yay!) we stopped by the pediatrician's office.  She checked Henry out and thought that his tongue is looking great and nearly all better.  She suggested that we continue treatment for a few more days and finish up the second bottle of Nystatin.
Yesterday, we finished the Nystatin and both Henry and I am feeling much better.  I don't think the yeast is completely gone, its more in balance than it was before.  I am hopeful that we will both continue to get better, but if we don't, the next step is gentian violet, which can be a really messy treatment, so hopefully we don't have to go there.
Throughout this whole process I've learned a lot of information about thrush and discovered a lot of great resources.  I found The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers by Dr Jack Newman to be very helpful, and Kelly Mom also has a lot of great thrush resources.  Hopefully the yeast beast is on it's way out the door.