Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies

I was after something quick and easy to snack on, including oatmeal which is known for increasing your milk supply. Now I'm bordering on an over supply, which is great, so I guess it works! My Mum's boyfriend shared this recipe with me.

Here it is. My changes are at the bottom.

Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Ingredients

½ cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
6 tablespoons milk
1 ½ cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups rolled oats
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200C/400F
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in eggs and milk.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
Stir oats into flour mixture.
Combine dry mixture into wet mixture.
Add vanilla and chocolate chips.
Drop spoonfuls onto baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes.

My changes: I only use 1 cup of chocolate chips and I bake on the top row in my oven for only 10 minutes. I let them sit on the tray for 1 more minute, then transfer to a cooling rack to harden up a little. This batch made 30, but it all depends on what size cookies you like. :)

Postpartum depression

Imagine source: Ben Fredericson

About a week ago I realised that what I've been feeling is more than just the usual ups and downs of adjusting to having a new baby. I had a break down and started feeling the urge to cut myself, which is an addiction I broke ten years ago and have only relapsed once in that time. I made a promise to my husband that I would never do that again, and that's a promise I intend to keep. Anyway, once I started feeling that extreme urge to hurt physically just to get the internal emotional pain OUT, I knew it was serious and not something I could keep trying to deal with on my own.

That night I did some reading about baby blues vs. postpartum depression and found out baby blues are considered normal for the first three weeks postpartum. Anything past that may be postpartum depression. Postpartum depression usually shows up around 6-7 weeks and can last from 3-14 months. Then I took the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale test and scored a 21 out of 30 for having postpartum depression (let's refer to that as PPD from now on so I don't have to keep typing it!), anything over a 10 is considered 'possible depression'.

So I 'came out' to a group of my online friends who pretty much unanimously expressed having felt concern for me and having wondered if I was suffering from PPD from the things I'd been saying. They encouraged me to speak with my husband about it which I did the next night. This week I tried two days to get in touch with a public health nurse to no avail, so ended up calling my midwife and speaking with her about it. She encouraged me to try get out of the house with the girls for 20 minutes a day and to get together with a friend who I didn't have to pretend with. She also said she'd tell the nurse that has taken me into her care along with the girls that I am having issues with PPD. I'm seeing her on Monday, so will have to get the guts to talk about it openly.

Acknowledging it has made it easier. I'm no longer pretending to myself that I'm ok. It helps me accept that what I am feeling isn't necessarily real, it's the depression. I have so much good in my life, two beautiful girls, a wonderful husband, a roof over our heads... but even on days when everything is perfect, I sometimes feel just terrible. There's a big black gloomy cloud over me with no reason to feel that way. I can acknowledge that, and I try work around it. My midwife told me to fake it until I make it. It doesn't feel like it right now, but I guess there is a point at which I will no longer feel this depression, so until then I can try functioning as if it's not there, while still acknowledging to myself that it is.

I feel a lot of shame which is ridiculous because if I was hearing this from someone else I would have nothing but compassion for them. When it's myself it's judgement. That's something to work on. My other worry is putting this truth out there, I'm afraid of the judgement from other people. The thing I need to remember is something one of my favorite Mum bloggers wrote recently:

"So: what other people think of me is none of my business. If I'm not spending all my mental energy wondering about what you think of me, I can figure out what I think of me."

- One Crafty Mother

Rolly Polly Baby

Lots of things to blog about, but again, I'm not in the habit so it's just not happening yet! I have this neat little widget on my sidebar that lets me put notes in there (right now it just says 'Drink water!'), maybe I'll add 'Write blog!' so I see it everytime I sit down here to nurse.

I guess the only thing I really left you hanging on was my homebirth status. I asked my midwifes and ended up talking with both of them about it, and they said they have no problems at all with my having another home birth with the next baby. We'll just take different precautions. Last time I had said let's do the pitocin in my thigh right after the birth. Unfortunately that's just not enough for my body as I still had that major bleed four hours later. So next time around they'll have an IV in and ready to go and will do the entire bag with pitocin immediately after the birth. That's going to be brutally painful but beats going through the very frightening experience of a big bleed and potential transfer to hospital. Hopefully that'll do it. Either way I've got (hopefully) a few years to think about it and I can always change my mind.

Freya is doing well. She weighed 9lbs 6.5oz at our 6 week appointment. She's chubbier than Desana ever was. Maybe I will end up with a rolly polly baby! She has been sleeping better in general the last two weeks and I'm kind of leaning towards thinking the chiropractic adjustments have helped her. She isn't screaming quite as often when I put her down and less screaming at night. I am very tired today though, bed after midnight then she woke for a feed at 5:30 and wouldn't latch to nurse in bed so we had to get up. Ended up snoozing with her on my chest on the couch until Desana started crying and calling out 'Mummy!' from her room at 7. That kid always wakes up earlier on the days I don't get enough sleep - I don't know how she does it!

 

I'm not sure how often Freya is nursing during the night at this point. I don't have a clock on my side of the bed so am not noting the time, so I just wake up enough to get her latched. I don't know that co-sleeping is working as well for me this time around. I am already contemplating trying to put her back in the bassinet but I don't want her crying or me to be more consciously awake multiple times a night to sleep. I just miss my space, I feel over-touched and am having a difficult time being with Matt. It feels like we barely get to hug let alone anything else. We'll see. I know they only need us this much for a very short time in the scheme of things.

In other news I have both girls in cloth diapers finally! My order of more arrived right when I ran out of the second pack of disposables for Freya. It's working fairly well, I just need to remember to put the diapers in the wash basically every day as Freya uses so many! They are both in the one-size swaddlebees, but Desana varies between the one-size bumgenius as her night diaper and the swaddlebees. They both work fine. I'm really pleased with the SBs and don't anticipate having to buy diapers again until we have a third, if it's a boy and I want more of the boy colors!

 

Potty Training

Image source: Manish Bansal

Trying out the potty training again. Desana has been showing signs of readiness for a long while, but first I was heavily pregnant, and then with the newborn. I wanted to wait a few more weeks but at this point she's spending more time taking off her diapers than not. So I spent this afternoon and this evening working on it. I sat her on her potty and read her two potty books to her, and she peed on the potty. Had one poop in panties accident that was my fault because I saw her acting the way she usually does and I asked her if she needed the potty, but she got very upset so I let it go. I should have taken her in and sat her on the potty. So she had to have a bath after that one and I had to scrub the carpet... Two more wet panties where I found her sitting on the potty with panties off but she hadn't gotten there in time, or realised after she wet herself that she was supposed to go on the potty. And finally she pooped in the potty with barely any effort at all! My big concern now is how closely do I have to follow her all the time to make sure she doesn't put her hands in the poop in the potty, and to help her clean up afterwards. I guess we'll see.

Today was so freaking hard I had moments of considering going back to work, as soon as next week! Then I remember I'd still have the newborn at home who would want to nurse at night and I don't feel so keen. I am just soooo burnt out. There's only so many times in a day you can have both kids screaming and crying at the same time without going nuts. I'm getting there!

Letting Go

Image source: .faramarz

Today is one of those rough days where I keep having to tell myself not to freak out. Nurse nurse nurse nurse nurse. No real babyfree time so I can't accomplish much. I chat with my Mum online and she asked if the dishes were done, laundry done, dinner figured out. I said yes to all those things so no reason to worry. It's just the MESS gets to me. I've been keeping the living area and kitchen up to a certain standard, that is easy to maintain now. But on days like today the mess creeps forward, the toys encroach and my blood pressure rises. I have to let go of the perfectionism (Hi Flylady) and just prioritise. All that really matters right now is giving my baby what she needs to grow and hoping everyone else survives in the meantime.