So many people say that gaining weight in pregnancy is one of the hardest parts of pregnancy. There is a lot of anxiety and pressure around not gaining too much weight and then losing all the weight (a la every single celebrity) in an ungodly amount of time.

I wasn't AS concerned... truthfully I wanted to milk the opportunity to eat whatever I wanted, be served first, and act-a-pig without judgment. I think I wasn't worried though because, for some miraculous reason, I was gaining weight slowly. Until the last 2 months. Then I doubled what I had gained in the first 7 months. Ack! In total I gained about 50 lbs. Imagine 25 lbs in 2 months!

The hardest part is that I am an ex-fatty. I have spent so much of my adult life making sure the scale was going down... watching it go up and up and up is kind of a mind-f@#!

But, I also wasn't too worried because I was certain that after the baby was born, and I started breastfeeding, the pounds would just melt off! *Repeat in a magicianly-like manner* They would just melt off!

Blink blink. Why aren't they melting off??

Aww crap.

So as UNconcerned as I was about putting weight on, the hardest reality to face is the after baby weight that sticks around. My body has completely MORPHED into this weird blobby mass. My widened hips that seemed so charming during pregnancy are now just big ol' hips that don't fit into my pants and my new pregnancy breasts that were such a pleasant surprise at first have now grown two bra sizes and look more 'African Village' than 'Victoria Secret'.

All this body changed turned into a lot of whining, complaining, and staring in the mirror while lifting fatty parts of my body up (that were not there pre-pregnancy) and letting them flap down, obviously making a bad situation much worse.  Enough was enough! I decided to go back to the gym.

I started out with a once week "Baby and Me" class, where I could do a super low-impact workout but bring my baby into the class with me so she could cry and whine and nobody could complain and ask for a refund. It was a good start to get me moving again and to get my joints oiled up because they were feeling super super tight, especially my knees.

After a few weeks of that, however, I started to get bored and, truthfully, just wanted more. So I dragged my butt back to the company I used to work for, GoodLife. Let me tell you, GoodLife is a way better experience as a member than an employee. Not that it's bad as an employee, but I was grateful to be able to walk into the club and not worry about how my numbers were and how many more days until the end of the month and do I need to start harassing my family and friends for their banking information?

The other great thing is that this club has Child Minding, so I can bring Stella with me while I work out! No excuses!

So I'm on my way to a new (old) bod and I'm doing it the tried and true way. Diet and exercise. And not raspberry pills. (Anyone on my FB knows that it was recently hacked and sending out hundreds of random messages telling people I lost 15 lbs because I started taking some raspberry pill crap).

After about one week and the gym, I'm already feeling great except I can barely walk up or down the stairs, or sit on the couch, or move, or breathe. But that's how I know I did a good workout ;-)

Here's to me losing the last 20lbs!

First of all, against my best efforts to NOT turn this into a mom blog, it seems as though we're going in that direction... although I will continue to throw dashes of non-baby related material, it's kind of LITERALLY my whole entire life right now.

Sleep.

Ahh sweet sleep.

#1 thing I was not prepared for to the full degree I needed to be. Lack of sleep.

I compare my cute little sweetie pie baby to an angry terrorist who has taken me hostage and tortures me with lack of sleep until I break. Anyone who has a new baby can relate. Kudos to all the working parents out there too because...YOU DON'T SLEEP. Yeah, yeah, everyone says that but how little do you actually sleep?

Pre-baby we've all had those long, essay writing/exam studying/partying for a few days nights. But after about, let's say, 3 days you usually get to sleep a BIG ol' sleep. Not with the baby! Those sleepless nights (where you are waking up EVERY 1-3 hours to feed and change the crying baby) drag on for monnnnnths.

You literally feel like you are being tortured. Ro and I made a mutual decision that all things said during the middle of the night must be forgotten in the morning as they are all screamed said out of pure exhaustion and, frankly, delusion. 

Then, just when you think things are looking up (as we did - started sleeping stretches of 5 or 6 hours!) everything goes back to the beginning for no apparent reason. It took us 2 hours to put Stella to sleep last night! We did the whole bath/massage/book/snack routine and by 9:42pm she was happily fluttering her eyelids as I rocked and shushed her to Slubersville.

But the second I put her down she opened her big, dumb, beautiful eyes... which was funny because I could see her opening her eyes as big as they would go, moving her head around in the dark like a little bird. Then the crying started. So I picked her up and walked around with her some more... still loving and patient! But again, the minute I put her down (and she was totally sleeping) her eyelids flash open.

Fast forward two hours.  Not so loving any patient anymore. Angry and frustrated. We have been taking turns trying to settle her down and finally succeed. It's almost a fight of us against her and it's 50/50 on who will win.

Now, I'm reading this book called The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep which I think is confusing me. There are so many rules about how to train your baby to sleep. The single concept I find the most frustrating is that if your baby is very fussy and hard to put to sleep it could be because: a) bedtime is too early; b) bedtime is too late; c)something is bothering her; d)something else that you need to figure out.

Uh... last I checked I was a mother and not a baby psychic. How am I supposed to know what her 'natural' bedtime is??? And clearly something is bothering her... why the hell do you think I bought this book?? I need answers!

But I suppose that's one of the biggest parenting secrets... there are no answers. It took us two hours to put Stella to sleep last night and then she woke up about 3 hours later and wouldn't fall back asleep until I finally brought her into bed with me and let her suckle all night on my (now horribly sore) nipples. True story. Who knows what bug crawled into bed with her last night... My only hope is that it stays the hell out tonight!

I'm impressed with my newly acquired ability to super multi-task like a mutant. Right. I was always pretty good at this skill, but now I am like a crazy person, combating 2, 3, 4, 5 tasks at the very same time.

Yesterday, while trying to put Stella to bed (it only took 4 hours, I might add), I think I hit my pivotal moment, when my mom came down asking if I wanted some help, and found me shushing and bouncing a swaddled Stella, with a soother in my mouth AND pulling her swaddle blanket tight with my teeth like a wild animal (also I was desperately trying to watch a little Glee!) It was a sight. I had a moment of clarity that I was crazy and should just relax a little. But then Stella screamed louder than a vacuum in my ear and I realized THAT was the crazy thought.

That's the thing with the babies... you start to realize that as soon as you have a window of opportunity (ie. Stella sleeps for a minute) you need to get as many tasks done as humanly possible, because god forbid she has a bad day and she is scared awake after a minute by her own flapping hand hitting her in the face. A good day is when my tight straight jacket swaddle keeps her hands tight down for at least 45 minutes.

**Side Note: How do babies sleep the way they do?? They are a mess of flailing limbs, especially during their REM phases of sleep. Right now, Stella is sleeping beside me, but she is kicking me and hitting me (and herself) and writhing around and grunting... I am trying to write as fast as possible because I know, any minute now, she's going to punch herself awake. **

So, now I've become this super task-oriented person, running around the second Stella sleeps to do any number of tasks that are impossible to do while she's awake. Laundry, folding laundry, putting dishes away, eating lunch, taking a shower, brushing my teeth, HAVING A DRINK OF WATER... God forbid I leave her side for a nanosecond to re-hydrate my body! She pulls out the big guns when I do, her nuclear weapon of sound.

Yesterday, something happened and Stella slept for two and a half hours. In fact, I kept going down to check on her for breathing because this was just not normal. Reassured by her breathing and seeing that she was still tied up swaddled, I decided NOT to do anything and to actually sit down and watch a lot of episodes of Girls (ps awesome awesome show).

I watched 7 episodes. Gasp. (PS. Please ignore how horribly lazy that sounds)

Laziness aside, it was glorious to just sit down and rest for a minute. I knew somewhere in the future I would have to pay for it but wasn't too interested at that moment. It was sweet to just eat a huge bag of chips without worrying about dropping crumbs all over Stella (probably waking her up from the crumb shower).

She slept so long, in fact, that Ro came home and WE woke HER up. Karma's a bitch, isn't it, Baby!

But, why would I even think that? Obviously, I am karma's bitch. And I was appropriately served when hours later, at bed time, I was frantically shushing, bouncing (trying to honestly control myself not to squeeze her out of frustration), pulling that swaddle tight with my teeth for the fourth straight hour. Message received. I will never rest again.

During my time in Brazil, I wrote several times about dating myself. Ro was working ALL the time, and terrible hours, so if I wanted to be wined and dined, I had to do it (to) myself. Dating myself was something I became comfortable with. I'm a cheap date and I make good conversation (side note: I probably looked crazy making good conversation with myself... but I digress).

So, now that Stella is being less of a perfectly normal newborn baby crazy, I can finally get up, get showered and take her out of the house! It still only happens after 12 noon, but whatever. I have moved away from dating myself and I am now onto dating my baby.

The last two weeks have been particularly productive and, dare I say, fun! We went to the mall twice, went to our aerobics class twice, went to a doctor's appointment and on Wednesday we went to the movies! There is a special event here called Stars and Strollers where you can go see a regular, adult movie but you can bring your young children and strollers.

It's AWESOME. There were 3 other small babies there plus us, an elderly couple and a young couple who clearly thought they were going to see a normal matinee of Les Miserables. Haha, sorry dummies! 

Seeing as there are so few people, and it's a movie especially for parents and their babes, the normal movie-going etiquette is totally non-existent. I got there, parked my stroller and proceeded to take up 3 seats with my jacket, blankets, purse, baby bag, hat/coats/mitts, plus my popcorn and oh yeah, MY BABY.

Right off the bat one of the babies started crying. Did anyone bat an eye? NO! No annoyed staring. No loud, exasperated sighing, you know the kind... big exaggerated inhale and the loudest, slowest exhale you can manage without passing out, believing you are making your annoyed point. Nobody even paid attention. It was totally acceptable to stand up when Stella started getting fussy (of course it was at a REALLY critical moment in the movie...). But when I looked around me I saw two of the other moms also standing right in the rows just rocking with their babies. I fed her multiple times and even changed her as they had set up a changing pad right outside the door of the theatre. In one word - AMAZING. I had a great time and ps Les Mis is so good and I cried so many times... (keep in mind I have never seen the live production so that may affect my opinion).

So, here's hoping for another equally as fun week of dating my baby... I'm kinda starting to like her ;-)

I've mentioned before that I've never had this 'maternal instinct' that many women have. I've never dreamed of babies and staying at home - in fact, for a while this was kind of my idea of hell. No offence to my baby! But seriously... staying at home, for an A-Type, Working-Girl personality like me, was really unappealing. 

But nevertheless, here we are. I am no longer the breadwinner, or even A breadwinner (aside from the taste testing and focus groups I now do to bring in an extra $20). This has been SUPER challenging for me. Add to it that it's currently -15C without the windchill... oh, and I live in crappy Suburbsville. I am feeling so isolated.

Yes, I am contributing to my family by raising my daughter. I'm not suggesting this is a small accomplishment because, trust me, it's not. It's just that sometimes it can get a little boring and repetitive. Cry-Change-Feed-Sleep-Cry-Change-Feed-Sleep... that's what we do (for now at least).  I schedule doctor's appointments just to have reasons to get out of the house.

So I joined a mama/baby aerobics class at a Recreation Centre (something I love having back again - affordable, varied types of recreation all under one roof). Today was our second class and I am starting to realize that Stella gets just as bored as I do being locked up inside the house all day (and in the basement to boot). At home she cries. A lot. Outside, though, she is magically entranced by the lights, sounds, voices, faces. I was able to lay her on an exercise mat for the whole HOUR of the class while I got my fitness on. She was pretty amused by me just dancing around her... and I was SO grateful that she let me have that time for myself. I'll totally act-a-fool and make funny faces to entertain her if she'll let me have that hour to sweat it out. Noooo question!

Later on, in the ladies' locker room, I chat it up with all the Italian senhoras who love babies and conversation. I breastfeed her and they are not shy to come up and touch her face, even brushing my breast as they do. They are comfortable with this. And because I have lived in Brazil, the land of no-modesty and familiarity, I am not embarassed by this either nor do I even find it strange. In fact, it's familiar, and I love it.

Today was lovely, with my baby and my 70 year old Italian senhoras. I would like some more, please.

Stella is 2 months old as of yesterday. This is probably the first minute I've had to sit down and write a blog since the LAST time I wrote one, which was 5 weeks ago. And I only have time now because I'm avoiding unloading the dishwasher. Yes, I have one of THOSE now... and trust me, I miss the simplicity of dish-washing by hand. Simplicity of life, obviously. Dishwashers are definitely faster.

So, in the last 5 weeks I've learned a lot. I've learned how to make my baby stop crying, probably my biggest accomplishment in life, thus far! Yes, I did get a degree. Yes, I did give birth. But finally making your insane crying baby stop crying (after 2 months of non-stop day and night crying!!!!!)... beats all of them by a million times. I give all the credit to THIS BOOK, The Happiest Baby on the Block. From the minute I bought it in the middle of the night during a particularly desperate crying fit (I was included in that one), it has helped us put Stella to sleep. It helps us calm her down, when she can't calm herself down (which is most of the time).

I'm going to assume that she will be a passionate child, full of big emotion and expression. But for now, she just cries... the most demanding, needy sound you have ever heard. I would honestly prefer to listen to a jackhammer all day. At least a jackhammer doesn't need me to feed it 20 times a day. At least it lets me take a shower.

The cry doesn't start slowly, either. It goes from zero to someone is murdering my own mother right in front of me!!! It's INTENSE. I'll be honest. It makes me want to shake my baby. I realize now why that is the #1 rule of things not to do! It seems so obvious! Don't kill your own baby? Why would I...?- OH! Now I see.

On the amazing side (and yes there IS an amazing side... why would anyone do this if there wasn't something equally as awesome as there is horrible), I am witnessing human development from the first moment of life. It's fascinating. Babies are little geniuses, by the speed that they develop.

I am super interested in the language aspect of her growth. She speaks her own language of grunts and coos, trying to express herself in other ways than just crying. It's very cool. We want to teach her as much about language as possible - I can't believe she will have the opportunity to speak two languages fluently. It's brilliant. The same way we, as adults, are moved to tears I can see that she is moved to happiness. She can be crying one minute and as soon as her need is met she is all smiles and laughs and flirtatious eyes. Her smile is so genuine. Her moves to happiness move me to tears!

Yesterday we witnessed her holding her head up for several minutes while on her tummy before she became exhausted and slowly lay down. Amazing! Something we take for granted, being able to hold our own heads up and not relying on someone else to hold them for us.

Little baby is waking up now so my few minutes alone are over... I will leave you with this little video to watch of Stella holding her up head up for one of the first times. Hope my next free moment is less than 5 weeks from now...

I wrote an enormous blog about my birth story and there was some kind of glitch and I lost all the information! Gah, it took me forever to write.
Basically what you need to know is that what we wanted from our birth plan was NOT what happened.

• I was planning a home birth but I developed high blood pressure in the last 10 days of pregnancy and had to be induced (meaning they insert this gel into my cervix to soften it and start my body into labour)
• The hospital experience was invasive and uncomfortable. I laboured for about 36 hours.
• I wanted no pain intervention but ended up having to have an epidural to reduce my blood pressure.
• I had to get an IV and Oxytocin to speed up my contractions
• In the end, I stalled at 7 cm and had to have an emergency C-section, which was the scariest experience of my life and can't understand how anyone would opt for a Cesarian!

Stella is 3 weeks old now. They are not kidding when they tell you your life will change after you have a baby. My entire existence right now is devoted to keeping her alive, whether that's considered to be by choice or otherwise. She wants to eat every 2 1/2 hours or so, usually for about an hour at a time and I have the boobies, so.....

My initial frustration came from the fact that both Ro and I were exhausted on an unearthly level. We stayed in hospital for 2 sleepless nights before Stella was actually born. After she was born we had, like, no idea how to take care of her. Since I'd had a C-Section my milk wasn't in and she is a hungry baby. A bad combination, which resulted in us staying awake LITERALLY all night long the first 2 nights after she was born. Plus we were in the hospital, sharing a room with another new mom, and the stress of keeping them awake was very overwhelming.

We just didn't know what to do. We felt helpless. Breastfeeding was excruciating. It's so painful. If you're not sure what it feels like, try having your partner or a friend suck on your nipples for 12 hours a day until they are raw and blistered. I couldn't do it anymore. But she was hungry, so what are you supposed to do??

She lost 12% body weight in those first 2 days, and the 'healthy' norm is 6-10%. The solution to help her get her weight back up was to supplement her with a little tube and formula that we gave to her at the breast along with breastfeeding. For the last 3 weeks everytime she eats we have to get the syringe and little tube out and try over and over to get her to latch onto my breast with the tube in her mouth. We have to keep on waking her up, bug her to keep eating, burp her continuously (because formula makes her super gassy) and generally just deal with this huge pain-in-the-ass tube while we pump her full of formula.

The good news is she's back at her birth weight again so today we will talk about the new plan of action (because now we can't just take the tube away, we have to do it slowly).

I'm going to be brutally honest and say that especially in the first two weeks I was having feelings of regret. The biggest reason I never wanted to have children was because I wasn't ready to commit my life to them. I didn't want to be forced into being the one who ends up taking care of the baby and even though I have the most involved husband anyone could ask for, there's a certain amount of care-taking that can ONLY be done by me.

I think this has been one of the biggest challenges for me - getting over my own preconceptions and expectations of myself. I always associated my own version of feminism to reject stereotypes and social expectations of women.

The scariest thing for me is that I don't feel like a natural mother so maybe it's just a fear of failure that I have. I'm afraid of creating a similar relationship with my daughter that I have with my own mother. I don't want to feel resentful. Ro and I made a choice to get pregnant. I want to be able to communicate openly with my baby, as a family.

It's amazing how much starting my own family has made me consider the dynamics of the family I come from. I thought I had worked through all my issues but clearly, I have not!

One thing I know for sure is that I want to be a good mother and make the right choices. What I also know is that I would NOT do this for anyone else in the world, and that's how I know that I love her completely. We keep going. We wake up every couple hours all night long, push through our exhaustion, try to make her smile.

The smile that eventually comes makes EVERYTHING worth it. It's hard to explain. The brief, fleeting eye contact... the turning of her head when we speak because she recognizes our voice.... the intimacy we share as she nurses on what my body has made just for her. Those are the things we live for. I realize that the amount of interaction will only increase and it will be less about simply supplying her endless demand. She will return the love soon with smiles, laughs, hugs... I'm eagerly awaiting those moments but am smart enough to appreciate that these moments will soon be past me. And so I try to keep things in perspective.