sept 23, 2007
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2:33pm

we are going to go get lili from my mom's in an hour :)
i can't wait to see her little face again and snorkle and wuffle her tiny parts :)
and delight in her hilarioous and wonderful expressions.
seriously, her expressions are the best thing ever.
so complex and intriguing!
she is the most beautiful thing in the world to me (besides M)
my heart soars when i think of her
i want to kiss her belly and toes and tiny tiny little fingers
i kiss her eyelids and she protests with snorts and squeaks but i know deep down she likes it because i catch a smile in the corner of her mouth.
then she'll chirp at me and look at me with surprise.
oooohhhhh to see her again!
my fridge is full of milk and my boobs too!
my milk makes her fat :) this makes me happy
my body remembers the weight of her
her tiny butt is getting fat, it's so adorable!
i like to squish it!
her button nose
her soft lips that make sounds like a fish. ha :)
the way her eyes open and close when she drinks

meeeeeeeeeoowwwwwwwwww :)
my kitten

1:25pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxLcZStUCus

ya, you really just have to have a sense of humour about it all.
you know?
i used to dance to this song in the 80's
i'll still dance to it, dammit!
*pogo*

when i do a search on down syndrome i always find people who have created these "inspiring" videos of children with down always with some sappy mariah carey type of song. always something about heroes or angels or something.

is it sick of me to want to counteract this a video of lili with devo's "mongoloid"?

i see lili in the future in a punk band with a t shirt that says "retarded" or "who wants cake?" (http://www.flatpointhigh.com/q_whowantscake.htm) screaming her head off shocking everyone.
kind of like how the riot grrls scrawled "bitch" or "whore" on themselves in an attempt to reclaim the word.

(of course i realize lili will be her own person with her own politics and the thought of this may not interest her)

but i really do wish something like this would happen to take away the sting of such things such as the lj community retard_nazis (that i found the other day as i was searching DS on LJ).
actually doesn't that community violate lj's TOS? (hate speech)

1:04pm

this is a strange thought and i'm sorry if this grosses anyone out (ok, i'm not really sorry :P
but i have my placenta still in my freezer (i was planning on having it cooked somehow by this chef i know who is head chef/owner of a local french restauraunt...but then the place closed. bummer! i'll still talk to him about doing something somewhere else. i want to have an "eat me/drink me" alice in wonderland dinner party. i'm weird like that and i don't care what you think about it.)

anyway...
the strange thought i have is not about that...
that was just the rambling preface.
what i am wondering is...since lili has an extra chromosome in every cell in her body...
then does the placenta also have an extra chromosome?
and if not...then why?

and in either case, where does this extra chromosome begin and end?
if the placenta was attached to me and part of my body...at what point, i wonder, did this extra chromosome "begin"?
well, ok, i know it began at inception. but i mean...as she attached to my body...where does it begin and end?

is there a normal amount of chromosomes at some point between me, the placenta, and her..and then *boom* at some physical point in there it just "turns" into flesh with extra chromosomes? i mean, when she was inside of me, where did she end and i begin and vice versa in regards to this extra chromosome thing?

i wonder if anyone has ever researched this.
i am totally curious.

i never saw my placenta after the birth.
i had a tupperware all ready for it, and after i delivered it and the midwife checked it out, it went straight into the freezer.

i saw it in there a few weeks afterwards. i picked up the tupperware and at the bottom of it i can see part of the umbilical cord still attched to it, frozen on the bottom.
a weird thing to see to say the least and my feelings about it are hard to describe.

i never got to inspect it or touch it.
i was so intensely weak/sore/exhausted after the birth that i had almost zero interest in seeing the placenta.

and after M cut the cord, i wanted to inspect some of the umbilical cord but as soon as i touched a bit of it, i was so turned off by it (the texture, etc) i lost all interest in inspecting it further because it just made me feel woozy to think about it.
all my attention had to be turned towards just not feeling so faint (afterall i had just lost a lot of blood....and even tho i only had to have one stitch, the part where i had to have the one stitch...i was losing a LOT of blood right there. as in it had torn by an artery or something and was actually squirting blood. nasty, i know. believe me, it was not wonderful to feel that happening to me. it didn't hurt or anythnig but it felt sickening, if you know what i mean)

i still have yet to write out the birth story.
i don't know why i hesitate to write it.
probably because it is so intense for me.
but i need to write it as i can already feel some minor details about it all fogging over in my mind.

i've finally been able to look at some of the cam photos from the birth.
before every time i would try to look at any i would double over with abdominal pain...it was all too fresh in my mind.
to see any part of it caused me to relive it.

if there was a video tape of it i don't know if i would EVER be able to watch it or even want to.
it was such a painful experience.
it's not something i want to linger over.

it still plays over and over and over in my head, tho, almost every hour of every day.
i think about my labour and birth constantly.
i go over and over all the minutes, not in a bad way but in a way that is nomal (i think).
any sort of life altering traumatic experience would be thought about in this way.
at least for me.

i go over the day and how it all began and how it progressed and how it ended.
and i wonder about it in all it's aspects.
i don't know when it will start to fade and i will go for a long time without thinking about it.

it really was amazing.
and i can't believe it actually happened to me.
and how quickly it happened.
maybe that is why i think about it because it all happened SO fast that i hardly got a chance to take in that it was happening.

and it's hard for me to believe i want to do it all again.

---
and more on the extra chromosome thing.

how weird is it that an extra copy of chromosome 21 would result in a person with a bit more space between their big toe and the next toe.
and a line in the hand that goes straight across all the way.
and a little ear fold at the top of the ear.
and the eyes to be a bit more slanted.
and a tongue that sticks out.
and white specks in the eyes.

(lili does not seem to have white specks in her eyes, at least not yet)

and this happens in almost all people who have this extra chromosome.
how weird is that?
i wonder how that works and why it works that way.

i will say , tho, that lili does not seem to the the "typical" baby with down syndrome.
(and maybe i am just looking at her with mother's rose coloured glasses...but she seems very smart to me!)

for one, she is not at all "placid" as many are described.
she isn't the opposite of placid either, but i wouldn't describe her as placid at all.

her body is also not "floppy". she has great muscle tone and i think she may be a future mountain climber by the way she moved and squiggles!
she is very strong.

she is super alert and engaged with the world. i can tell that as soon as she is able to walk or crawl she is going to be into EVERYTHING.
she is very curious about things and i know i am going to have to watch her like a hawk because she is going to want to touch/eat/lick/throw everything she can get her hands on.

i am frustrated that in every single piece of literature i have read about babies with DS, the only breastfeeding issue they ever address is that babies often have poor suction because of low muscle tone.

this was never the case with lili. i could not breasfeed her because she has a VERY strong mouth (and suction) and would push out my nipple with her tongue at the same time she would suction. also at the same time she suctions in her top lip.

they never address problems with the tongue anywhere i have ever seen.
i don't know why this is.

i joined a bunch of yahoo groups about DS and when i get the energy, i am going to ask there to see if anyone ever had the same trouble as i did.

but i continue to pump milk for her with the pump.
it's tedious but i am getting used to it now.
i didn't think i'd be able to cope keeping it up for a year or more, but i think now i may able to do that.

the only problem is keeping my supply up. i just have to keep forcing myself to pump to keep it up.
and when lili is visiting my mom's (like she is today) i have a tendency to get very lazy in the pumping departmet (because i want to sleep!)

i am amazed at how much milk i am able to produce tho!
who would have thunk it?
seriously, my actual real breasts (without the implants) were (before pregnancy) smaller than an A cup.
i could not even fit inot a training bra they are that small.
they were pretty much nonexistent really.
now i can tell they are bigger (but i have no way of really knowing what cup size the actual real breast is...i am guessing maybe even a B right now? i don't know. at least an A for sure)

but after lili went to my mom's i did not pump for 10 hours ( bad of me i know) but when i finally did i produced 6 ounces!
wow! how cool that i can fit THAT much milk in my breasts at one time (3 ounces in each)

if only i could produce 6 ounces each time i pump!
usually i always produce about 3 ounces, sometimes 4 (sometimes 2..but not usually)
if i am good at pumping regularily i make about an ounce an hour.
it is enough to feed her, although sometimes (but not often) i can't keep up with how much she wants to eat and so i had to feed her formula to supplement. oh well. she gets 95% breastmilk, and so that is good.

on the sex front, sex is uncomfortable.
i have heard it can take 6 months to a year for sex to not be painful for some women.
oy.
i know the only way for sex to become not painful is to just keep on trying to have it.
but i tell you, it's hard to get in the mood when it hurts.
it sucks so much because i really DO want it because i want that bonding with my loverman.
i need that "communication" with him. the energy that we give back and forth to each other.
i miss it sooooo much.

the other day, i think i got my period (i'm not totally sure as i continue to have the post partum bleeding, too..just a tiny tiny bit)
and towards the end of it i decided to try to use a tampon and even the tampon hurt!
it was like i could feel the tampon in me as if it were not in all the way or in at a weird angle.
anyway, i could feel it and it was not at all comfortable.
and during sex i feel sharp pain right at the opening.
i am really discouraged about this.
i have a fear that i will never be able to have sex without pain again, and i really hope i am wrong.

---

i miss my little lili bean.
i miss her little sounds and little parts and little ways.
i miss her smell.

although i may leave her at grandma's for one more day just so that i can get SOME sort of semblance to my house.
people say "oh it doesn't matter if your house gets messy! no one will care!"
well, i don't care what other people think about my house, it's ME who cares.
i am the one who has to live in it and look at it all day long.
it's bad for my morale to have to deal with a house that is not a little bit "feng shui"
and lord, i have a huge ways to go until this house is even remotely "feng shui"
i don't even have the furniture back to how it was bfeore the birth because we had to move it all around for the birth tub to fit.
everything is still in a huge dissarray.
and i still don't know where to put all of lili's things.
it's crazy in here.

 

+++

Baby Registry:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/3BKBUJCBUDKXC