1 month goal!

Ah! We have reached our first mini goal! When the Lactation Consultant (LC) told me that it would be nearly impossible for Jack to nurse I was crushed. I assumed that meant that he would have to have formula and my dreams of breast feeding him were vanishing.

 I went back to our hospital room and quickly started scouring the internet for some sort of other option. I knew that it was possible to pump breast milk and give it to him through a bottle. But the concept of keeping that up long term is something I had no idea existed. From my own research I found that while its not very common, there are women out there who Exclusively Pump (EP). These women, whether due to medical difficulties, past abuse, failure to latch, or supply issues, choose to pump their milk and bottle feed it to their babies for as long as they can. I recently saw a woman in one of my EP boards that kept it up for 34 months (Way longer than I plan to do).

 So with a new found hope I decided that I would not give up on my goal of giving Jack breast milk for his first year. After all I had nursed Ella until she was 14 months and I was so looking forward to sharing that bond with Jack. Though at times it is still hard for me to come to grips with the fact that Jack and I aren't on the path I had originally planned. It is still hard for me to sit in the infant cry room at my church and see other moms holding their babies to their chest while I am holding Jack's bottle in his mouth or hooked up to my pump. I find it hard to not be jealous of them and that special time they get to spend with their babies. In a way I feel like I am in mourning over it still, but those are feelings that I am working through.

 One of the first things I learned about EPing was that I should make mini goals. My first mini goal was to get Jack to 1 month old on only breast milk and today is that day :). This has not been a cake walk thus far and I know there are going to be more obstacles to come but here are some tid bits of advice from the lessons we have learned during our first month of EPing. If you or someone you know is considering EPing or you are currently going through this journey with your baby I have found it helpful to:

1. Have a support system! It is so important to have people cheering you on and who are willing to help in any way possible. My hubby has been my hero during this learning process, taking care of both of the kids while I hook up to the pump and try to concentrate on not being stressed ( not an easy task). It has also been so amazing to have friends who understand why I am putting myself through this and who support me by allowing me to pump at their homes while we hang out and not making a big deal about it. I have pumped at their homes during our girls nights or just times when our families hang out together. They completely understand when I am running 20 minutes behind because I had to pump before leaving the house. My family was amazing with this during the holidays. I even pumped at the card table while playing rummy with my two brothers.
2. Educate yourself and those around you! You will soon find that there is not a lot of material out there about EPing. Even my pediatrician , whom I love, told me that I probably won't be able to keep up with EPing for a long time. I have read stories of both women who have made it to 12 months and women who found it impossible. There are so many herbal remedies, prescription medicines, dietary changes, etc. that you can take to help your milk supply grow and be able to maintain it. Currently I am taking Reglan ( a prescription drug that aides lactation) and Fenugreek ( an herbal supplement). I also make sure to eat at least 2 servings of oatmeal a day which makes a huge difference for me. Educating those around you about EPing will also help you a lot. I make sure to fill my friends in on my discoveries and what I am finding helpful. A lot of people look at me like I have two heads when I tell them that I pump for 20 minutes every 3 hours around the clock. They wonder why I would put myself through that and tell me repeatedly that it would be so much easier to just switch him to formula. But for me that isn't even an option right now. For me there has never been a gray area about giving Jack breast milk. If its there and I can supply it to him, then I am willing to do whatever it takes. Babies with cleft palates get ear infections a lot ( up to 1 a month). Breast milk helps cut that number down significantly. It is also easy for cleft palate babies to aspirate their milk which means that they breathe some of it into their lungs while eating. If they aspirate anything it can be dangerous but breast milk is not as harmful if aspirated. Cleft palate babies will all eventually have surgery. Breast milk contains antibodies that help fight off infections that are soo easy to catch in the hospital and after surgery.
 3. Join a support group for EPers! I just joined an EP group on facebook and it has been a life saver! It is so nice to be able to ask questions and get real life answers from women who have been in your shoes. They don't judge you for being emotional about certain things or for worrying more than normal. THey don't even bat an eye when you are crying at 1 am because you spilled half an ounce of breast milk that took you 10 minutes to pump :)
 4. Set small goals and celebrate them! Know that every bit of breast milk you give your child makes a difference! This is something that I am constantly telling and retelling myself! At first I thought, Ok this is possible and I am going to get Jack to 12 months, then I realized exactly how long 12 months is and how many things could happen between here and there. It is so much easier and more practical to set smaller goals for yourself. My first goal was 1 month and I am so incredibly happy to say that we have accomplished that! My next goal is 3 months and 2 weeks ago that seemed impossible but now it seems so much more manageable.

 5. Find a Lactation Consultant and ask her a million questions :)! I cannot express how much I love my LC. She answers my emails quickly, was so kind and compassionate when I cried like a baby in her office when Jack wouldn't latch and completely understands why I want to work so hard to give him breast milk. A good LC is an invaluable resource and I could not imagine going through this without one!

So there is what I have found helpful so far. Any other EPers out there? What helps/helped you?

Here is an adorable picture of my sweet 1 month old boy! 

Jack's Birthday Part 2

Sorry to leave you hanging. I am currently experiencing what it's like to be an Exclusively Pumping or EPing mother. This means that every 2-3 hours I have to hook myself up to a pump and pray that I get enough milk to come out for Jack's next feeding. It's hard work, but I want Jack to have breast milk and all it's benefits so I am going to try to EP until his 1st birthday. But that is the ending of this story so lets go back to where I left off....

They wheeled me down to our recovery room. There Jack was looked at by the Pediatric Hospitalist. He checked Jack over and said that he looked perfectly healthy. Sean and I agreed because we of course think he's perfect :). I tried to get him latch again and was unsuccessful so I asked the lactation nurse to come back in. We worked with Jack for around 45 minutes and still couldn't get him to properly latch on. He hadn't eaten much but he wasn't fussy so they said we would give it a few more hours and try again. We laid Jack in the bassinet and were getting ready for bed when he started choking. The nurse was in the room with us and saw him struggling so she picked him up and used the bulb syringe to suck out his mouth. Ella had the same issue the night she was born. Because both of my children had an extremely fast birth ( Ella was 15 min. of pushing and Jack was literally 3 pushes) they didn't have much compression to help them get all the mucous and fluid out of their airways. With Ella they just sent her down to the nursery and used a higher powered suction device that helped her stop choking and she was just fine after that. I told the nurse that I wanted her to do the same thing with Jack and she agreed, so she wheeled him down to the nursery. About 20 minutes later the Hospitalist came back in. Which immediately we thought was odd because he said he was done with us.

 He walked over to my bedside and said "I need to talk to you about your son's mouth". I'm sure that Sean and I looked like a deer in headlights. The doctor explained to us that Jack had a cleft in his soft palate. They had missed it in his check up earlier because its so far in the back of his mouth. The doctor explained that it would mean a few things for us.

1. Jack would most likely have some feeding issues- meaning he couldn't nurse like a normal baby, he would need a special bottle and possibly even a feeding tube if he was unable to use the bottle.
2. Jack would need surgery. A cleft in the soft palate makes certain sounds impossible to say so at around age 9-12 months they will have to close the cleft so that Jack can speak properly.
3. He will probably need speech therapy. We sat there quietly while he listed these things off to us. I kept trying to pay attention to what he was saying while trying not to burst into tears.

The nurse brought Jack back to the room and I all but ripped him out of her arms. Sean and I immediately got online to research cleft palates. We found that it was extremely rare to only have a soft palate cleft, no one really knows the cause of it and that Riley Children s Hospital has the best craniofacial surgical team in the country.

 They sent a new lady in from lactation to see if Jack would latch at all. When he was unsuccessful again they told us that he would have to be fed a bottle of formula so that we could see if he was able to eat properly. Apparently a cleft in the soft palate makes it hard for him to breathe while eating and it is easy for him to aspirate milk into his lungs. An hour or so later a different Pediatric Hospitalist came to our room to inform us that Jack would be moving to the Special Care Nursery. They wanted to make sure that his oxygen levels were staying up while he drank his bottle. Yet again I sat quietly while a doctor explained things to us and tried my best to focus on her every word w/o bursting into tears. She walked us down to the special care nursery, explained all the rules to us ( only 2 visitors at a time, one had to always be a parent) She showed us where to wash our hands and arms before entering and then what button to push on the outside wall so that a nurse could buzz us in to the nursery. They took him over to a special bed and started hooking him up to the monitors.

 I lost it.

 I had been trying to hold it in for the past few hours and was doing my best to be strong but seeing them hook him up to the monitors did me in. I was uncontrollably sobbing for a few minutes. I tried to hide behind my husband in the corner of the room. The pediatrician was so very compassionate. She quickly grabbed some tissue and found a rocking chair for me to sit in. She handed Jack to me and said "Mommy, he's going to be fine, I promise you this is fixable". I kept apologizing for crying and she kept assuring me that Jack was healthy and would be fine.

 They showed us a special bottle called a Haberman and said that it would help Jack eat. He took it like a champ and sucked down a half ounce of formula in 10 minutes. For the next 24 hours Sean and I took turns doing Jack's feedings ever 3 hours. One of us was always in the special care nursery holding Jack and talking to him. Later in the evening the doctor came back in to give us a hand out about cleft palates. She listened while we asked questions and voiced concerns and then she put her hand on my shoulder and told us we were good parents. It is amazing how much that touched our hearts! In the midst of everything that had just taken place it was so nice to hear that. For the past 24 hours we had felt like we were swimming upstream and playing catch up and for her to say that really reassured us that we could do this. We could get Jack through whatever obstacles were coming our way.

I pumped every 3 hours even though I was only getting a few drops (if that) and then I would syringe feed him the drops. We annoyed the nurses, asking questions about every monitor, every stat and every test. Because a cleft palate is a midline defect they wanted to check other organs for defects so they ordered a head to toe ultrasound for him. Everything came back normal except for a heart murmur and even that closed the next day. Every time they gave us a goal for Jack he would blow through it! AFter 24 hours they let him come back to our room and we had to wheel him back down for each feeding to be monitored. After 24 more hours they didn't need to monitor his feedings anymore, but wanted to keep him there just in case. Then on Tuesday morning they came in and started walking us through the discharge papers.

We left the hospital on formula (which broke my heart). I wanted so badly to nurse Jack but its just not possible for him. 5 days after he was born my milk finally came in and we were able to cut back on his formula in take and after 7 days we were able to cut formula out completely. So far my milk supply is keeping up with him and I've actually been able to put some reserve milk in the freezer. Jack eats like a champ and is gaining weight beautifully! He gets extra gassy from swallowing air during his feedings and that can make him fussy but he's normally such a chill baby. For the first few days it was hard to enjoy him, I know that sounds awful but I just felt like he as so fragile and that I would do something wrong. But now we are into our own routine and learning his little personality and loving every minute with him!

So there you have it. The story of Jack's birth and the discovery of his cleft palate. I will be keeping you updated on our journey with EPing and with Jack's surgery in the future. Thanks for sticking with me and reading all of this :)

here are some pictures for you as a reward !

Jack's Birth Story- Part 1

I have tried writing this post several different times now. I keep finding it hard to put into words the whole experience of Jack's Birthday. For me it was a two fold story of extreme joy and incredible fear. No one ever wants to hear a doctor say that there is something wrong with their child and though Jack has a very mild birth defect that we will be able to fix with surgery, hearing the doctors tell me that my brand new, absolutely perfect baby boy had something wrong with him was one of the scariest experiences of my life!


Lets start from the beginning. I had a regularly scheduled appointment with my OB on Tuesday Dec. 4th. The doc checked me and announced that I was still 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced (I had been for the past week) and also informed me that I had a posterior cervix. This is where your cervix is pointing towards your back instead of down the birth canal. The OB assured me that this was fairly normal and that when I went into active labor it would correct itself. We discussed options and decided to go ahead and induce me on Friday the 7th (Jack's due date). I had been having contractions on and off for the past month and a half and I was ready to meet my sweet boy!

 Friday morning we got up at 4:45, packed up the remaining stuff in our bags, kissed Ella and left her with Sean's parents. We arrived to the hospital at 5:30 and were checked into our room by 6. I had made a comment to Sean telling him how much more comfortable I would feel if we had the same nurse this time that we had when I gave birth to Ella. When we walked into our room on the labor and delivery floor Sean noticed that her name was on the board as someone who was working that day. We asked the lady who checked us in if we could request her and she called right away and told her that we wanted her with us again. I cannot express how much relief I felt knowing that this kind woman would be taking care of us again, she was seriously AMAZING with me when I had Ella! She checked me and I was having regular contractions but still dilated to only 2 cm. She started my pitocin drip and said she would be checking on us often. By 10:30 my OB was making his rounds and came in to check me. I was now at 4 cm and 75% effaced and thankfully my cervix had moved up enough for him to break my water.

This is when the fun began :)

 The contractions were manageable but very painful. I found it most comfortable to sit on the edge of the bed and let my feet dangle. I like to kick my feet when I am in pain and that coupled with some breathing techniques really helped me work through the contractions. At around 11:30 I was feeling a lot of pressure and asked for my epidural. By 12 I had the epidural in and was laying down trying to rest. I developed what they call a hot spot in my hip where the medicine was unable to reach my nerves due to the way Jack was laying. I felt every contraction in just that one spot ( very weird and uncomfortable) They gave me another dose of the pain meds and got my hips situated in a way that allowed it to reach the hot spot. Just when I started to feel relief the doctor came in and said that Jack's heart rate was going down with each contraction and they wanted me to change positions to see if it would help. They checked me and I was at 6cm and 90% effaced and they made me roll to my other side. Well it helped his heart rate but made my hot spot come back. at around 12:45 I called the nurse back in to see if she could give me another dose on the epidural and told her I felt like i needed to go to the bathroom. She checked me and said "well that is because you are having a baby" I had gone from 6 cm to 10 cm in just 25 min. The doctor came back in and after just 3 pushes Jack arrived at 1:22 p.m.

He was perfect, wrinkly and big! His head was beautifully round and he was crying so hard he turned a nice purple color that scared me half to death! They assured me he was fine and I let them take him over to the warmer to get cleaned off. To me he looked smaller than Ella, but when they put him on the scale he weighed in at 9 lbs 8.3 oz and 21 1/4 inches long! Everyone kept commenting on how pretty he was :) Sean and I were absolutely in love! I tried to nurse Jack after about 30 minutes and he seemed to not be interested. The lactation nurse came in and tried to help, but he kept making a loud noise and you could tell that he wasn't latching properly. They weren't too concerned so they said we would go ahead and let visitors come see him and we would try to get him to nurse later. We let Ella come in first to see him and she kept saying "Oh my baby, my baby" and giving him lots of smooches!

After everyone came in and had left we were moved down to the recovery room. That is where the real adventure began... to be continued.

The Waiting Game

I have really sucked at keeping this blog up for the past months. SO much has been happening and I had planned to put up a post about Halloween and another post about Thanksgiving along with a pregnancy update... but honestly I haven't had the energy or desire to write anything lately. So here is a quick recap


October- this was filled with all things fall. We went to the pumpkin patch and got Ella hooked on delicious apples :) We went to the Children's Museum and Ella go to go through her first haunted house ( she was a champ... didn't even cry once ). My awesome friends threw a "Little Man" Shower for Jack. It was a hilarious day :)  We went to the Zoo Boo where Ella was the cutest little scarecrow I have ever seen  and I got to scream my head off in the bird exhibit... seriously birds are HORRIBLE! To end October we took Ella trick or treating with a lot of our friends and she had a blast!

November- We tried to relax a lot this month. We had a great Friendsgiving dinner with our best friends ! We had delicious food with both sides of our family and tried to tie up all the loose ends before Jack arrives.

December- So far we are in the waiting game. I am trying my best to stay positive and not get too impatient waiting for Jack to get here. My body is pretty exhausted since I have been contracting off and on each day for the past month or so. Friday he will be here whether he likes it or not :) Against my original plan I scheduled an induction on my due date. I swore I would not do Pitocin again this time but I also vastly miscalculated how stressful the last weeks of pregnancy would be on my body. I am ready to meet my lil man!

Enjoy some pictures.

Here comes Fall!!!

Ah Fall! I love you sooo much! I love the cooler weather and the beauty of the leaves changing. I love pumpkin recipes and orchard visits! I love all things Fall! So far this Fall has proved to be quite eventful for the Ferguson household.

First, we recently have begun making the switch from using disposable diapers to cloth diapers. I purchased a few from a friend of mine at an EXTREMELY low price and decided to give them a try on Ella. The kind we decided on are Bumgenius One Size pocket diapers. We are using an older version, the 3.0. I only purchased 4 from my friend and around 12 inserts so I started out with only using them on Ella when we were at home.  I have to say I found it to be much less complicated than I had imagined and recently purchased 20 diapers and 40 inserts online. We plan on cloth diapering Jack as well so now we are pretty much set :) I will be posting more on my cloth diapering experiences/mistakes soon.

Secondly, we went to a marriage conference. Sean and I attended multiple student conferences in our teenage years but we have never went to a marriage conference before. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but we went with out entire small group which ended up being 16 people. The conference was Real Marriage which is put on by Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace. Sean and I really enjoyed it. Mark was incredibly funny and to the point. I took a ridiculous amount of notes :) My favorite snippit of advice from the conference was that our standard of beauty should be our spouse. In a world where we are bombarded with magazines and television shows that tell us how we are supposed to look it was a refreshing concept to think that Sean measures everyone else and their beauty against mine. Which right now must mean that Sean only finds extremely pregnant, hormonal, frizzy haired, crazy people screaming that they are hot all the time absolutely gorgeous :) Seriously though, if you have never invested in a marriage conference I highly recommend Real Marriage. If you can't go to the conference get the book!

Lastly, the kids are growing like crazy. Ella is talking in little sentences now and it is getting a lot easier to understand her when she is talking. I mean don't get me wrong she still speaks in that kind of elvish toddler jibber jabber most of the time, but when I was giving her a bath the other day she did turn over on her belly and say "Mommy get my butt"... I know, I know it's adorable... Jack is measuring 2 weeks ahead. I had my last doctor appointment on Thursday and my only complaint was that I feel huge. I mean literally I keep getting the " aren't you about to pop" question any time we go into public places. So when he measured my belly he said we would need to do another ultrasound to possibly move up my due date. I'm excited because 3rd trimester ultrasounds are sooo fun!!! It is incredible how much of the baby you can see on those things! Jack is still heads up 7 up for right now. Hoping and praying that he has his daddy's flip turn skills and will go into the right position soon. I DO NOT want a C-section!

Well that is our update for now. Fall is shaping up to be quite a busy season for us this year and I know that Winter is not going to calm down any either. For now we are just trying to take it in strides and spend as much time with Ella as possible!

Who is this woman and what did she do with my mom?

The toddler stage... also less lovingly called the terribly twos. Like most of her milestones Ella has hit this one early. For the past few weeks she has been a TERROR! Throwing things, kicking, hitting, fits, whining, saying " NO" to everything, the list goes on. Most days I feel at my wits end with her. What happened to my sweet daughter who loves to give hugs and was content to sit on my lap and read 100 books each day. A lot of the time she is soo good for everyone else. She behaves for her Grandparents and most of the time calms down by the time Daddy gets home from work each evening. She plays with him on the floor and giggles and laughs the whole time he's giving her a bath at night. While I love that she's showing him so much attention, lately I feel like , to Ella, I have turned into this yelling monster who is constantly telling her no and putting her in time outs. I'm the bad guy who won't let her do fun things like climb the entertainment center shelves, dance on the coffee table, or put random things in the outlets.

This is not what I set out to be when I wanted to become a parent. I did not want my days to be filled with time outs and "no's". I didn't want my daughter to get into the habit of hiding from me when she makes mistakes. Yes she literally tries to hide from me when she's done something wrong. This is something I have been deeply concerned about for a while. What kind of parent do I want to be? What message do I want my parenting style to send to my child? Am I setting a good example to Ella of what a mother should be?

This is my new commitment to Ella. That in these few months we have left of her being our only child, I will get into the habit of being intentional with my parenting style. I'm sure you are thinking to yourself " Now Heather isn't it enough to just love your child". More and more I am seeing that no its not enough to just love your child. I can love Ella and still spend my days letting her run wild and just scream at her when she gets out of hand. It is a choice to walk beside her and try to show her why I don't want her to act that way. It is a choice to intentionally discipline her.

Anywho, for the past few days I have been thinking a lot about what I want our parenting style to convey to Ella. So far I have come up with a few things that I want her and eventually her brother to know.

1. We prayed for you. You were not accidents or something that just happened to us. We prayed long and hard about when the right time to have children was. Then it took a long time after we finally said " we're ready" for us to actually get pregnant. I want them to always know that they aren't a circumstance that we are dealing with. They are gifts that we are trying to properly take care of.

2. Our love is truly unconditional. There isn't anything you could do or say that will take it away. That doesn't mean I won't get upset with you and or be angry, but I hope they always know that love is the driving force behind our actions.

3. We enjoy you. Though right now it doesn't seem like it. I'm sure Ella feels like I was sent to earth to destroy all of her fun lol. But we do enjoy having kids. Our hearts are filled each day when we you giggle and learn. I look forward to teaching you things and Daddy can't wait to get home from work to just be with you!

4. You are safe and in an environment that encourages you to learn. Our goal is that our children know that it is okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn. We don't want to get so wrapped up in our hatred of cleaning house that our kids feel like they can't explore or make a mess. It's hard to turn the other way when Ella colors off of her paper and onto the table, but I know she is just figuring out how to manipulate the markers across the page. I have to make a conscious effort to not scold her for making messes while she's learning.


So that is as far as I have gotten with this. It may sound like a bunch of chatter to most people, but its something that has weighed heavily on my heart recently. It is definitely something I am putting to prayer each night! How about you? Do you have a parenting style you are trying to stick with?

You are God of all else I'm letting go!

I've tried to write this blog post several times over the past two weeks. Each time I end up deleting it, not very happy with the flow of it or how it makes me sound. This time I've decided that whatever this post ends up with... it is what it is. At least after I finish it I won't have the words running through my mind all day long (Anyone else do that when they have an idea for a blog?)

So any who....

A few weeks ago I was hit with this idea. In a few short months I will be a mother of two. I will have a tiny infant who needs me every second of the day and I will also have a toddler who can entertain herself for roughly 20 min... but still needs me for the majority of her day. This. Scares. Me!

Tonight as I was reading to Ella before bed, I felt the baby kick. That is when all of these feelings started to rush over me. Questions and concerns. Doubts mostly. Doubts about my ability as a mother and the capacity of my heart to grow the way it needs to.

How will I split my time and attention between the two? How will I be able to love this new baby as much as I love Ella? How will Ella know that we aren't picking favorites? How can I take care of them and still be a good wife?

I know the answer to this is simple. That I will lean on God and He will show me how to juggle all of it. That He will expand my heart to make room for equal amounts of love for both my children and my husband. That He gave me two beautiful babies and the most amazing husband. That He will not abandon me when things get tough.

Its just that sometimes, even though I know the answer... I'm still scared! Scared that I am inadequate and that I will fail at this. Scared that I will not do a good job of showing Ella that no matter what happens or who comes along, that she will always be special to me. That I will fail to show her that the day she was born I instantly changed. All of the things I used to spend countless hours worrying about didn't matter anymore. She helped me to realize just how easy it can be to trust God and to know that He is Good!

All of these things I am committing to prayer. Praying that God will mold me into the wife and mother I am called to be. That I will have to wisdom to know when to be quiet and listen for His guidance. Praying that I will not be prideful when I need to ask for help. Praying that I will not lose sight of the fact that I am His daughter, and I am loved!

How about you? Did you feel this way when you had your children? How did you make sure that everyone feels equally loved?