Follow Up

Baby girl is feeling better. We figured out how to give her antibiotics without her throwing a fit.





Make Dad give them to her.



It worked. Every. Time.


Am I that big of a pushover??

Where Do I Donate?

What do you do with your clothes that your babies grow out of?

I really should have donated them- or passed them along as hand me downs.

However...
I have ALWAYS saved my girls clothes. It was smart and practical in my mind. It saves money, time and energy. My almost 3 year old needs new shoes? I walk out into the garage, search through my boxes and I have 6 brand new pairs of shoes for my daughter.

Here is the problem. I feel like a hoarder! We are getting ready to move so I have been going through all of their old clothes. I picked out the sentimental ones and condensed them into 1
huggies box. Read that again- 1 box!

I started with 12 boxes and 2 giant tupperwear bins. I pulled some really nice outfits out for my little sister and her baby but the rest I am putting out at my garage sale that I am having tomorrow.

After they are all gone from the garage sale then I will donate them. Maybe to a charity besides Goodwill? Like a shelter? What do you think? Where do you donate your old clothes? What do you do with the clothes your kids have grown out of?

Mommy Monday: Toddlers and Antibiotics

Sorry about the slacking on the blog posts lately. My almost 3 year old had strep throat. It kind of went like this:

I got sick, she started coughing and then on Saturday night she started running a fever. Being the AWESOME mom that I am, I couldn't find a thermometer- do I even own one anymore??

But, I could tell that she had a fever. So I gave her some tylenol at 11pm and tucked her in bed next to me. We fell back asleep with the humidifier as she coughed some more. I finally felt her fever break when she was sweating all over me. I laid there thinking "my poor baby doesn't feel well" and then fell back asleep.

About 2 hours later I felt myself start to sweat when I realized she was burning up again. The cough wasn't any better so I picked her up, gave her a drink of water, rubbed a cool wash cloth over her and googled "Night time pediatric urgent care" in the Phoenix area. I wasn't thinking a cough needed an ER visit, but I sure didn't want to take her to somewhere with adults. I wanted books and movies and someone who had a little pediatric stethoscope. I found THIS place and loaded her in the car and off we went.

I went originally for her cough and the triage nurse takes us in to check her vitals and says "wow, temperature of 103.6, that is kind of high."

Another MOM OF THE YEAR award goes to Brittani. Seriously, how did I let my baby's fever get that high?? Isn't that when kids are supposed to get seizures or something?? (It has been a long time since my pediatric rotation back in 2004 in nursing school)

Short time later and she is being looked at, the doctor gives us a prescription for ibuprofen and amoxicillin because he found out she has strep throat. We were in out and back and home with our prescriptions within an hour.

So now that she is feeling better- this bubblegum flavored amoxicillin is going to be the death of me. No amount of bribing with chocolate, toys, marbles in the marble jar, will convince her to swallow her medicine. I put it in her mouth and she screams but keeps it in her mouth.

I coax, encourage, clap, make funny faces and she still screams.

Then I pick her up and lie her back so she can't start spitting it out. Cause she always starts to spit it out.

I then threaten- threaten to take away toys, put her in time out, take away her blanket, no candy, no marbles, etc.

Then I blow in her face- It is supposed to make them swallow, right? But then she starts to gag and she ends up spitting/coughing some of it out on my face.

Then I start the cycle over. I try to bribe again- coax her- trick her- encourage her- threaten her- and blow again. I swear giving toddler's medication is like bipolar on steroids. Scary. Very scary.

After she swallows it, minus the stuff she spit in my face and on her clothes, I hold her close and give her a hug. I remind her that she needs to get better all the way and she has to take her "white medicine" three times a day.

Then I wipe away her tears and kiss her.

To be repeated 6-8 hour later.

Pee Problems?

Image http://www.impactlab.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/incontinence.jpg

At my current practice I see a lot of women who have pee problems.

Pee problems? Yes. I am not talking about the normal bladder infection, because I see those all the time, but I am talking about pee problems. Like holding your pee, not being able to go when you want to, peeing too many times in the middle of the night, leaking pee at random times, pressure when you pee, not able to let all the pee out when you go... (okay, so I have said pee 8, no 9 times now, I will wrap it up.)

Back to my point. A lot of times, as women, our bladders don't work how we want them to. Some people blame this on childbirth... well, even women who have c-sections have urinary problems. Then you say, it is because of pregnancy... well, even women who have never been pregnant have bladder problems. Okay, maybe it is because of age... well, I have treated patients as young as teenagers for bladder problems.

Honestly, we are women. We have bladder issues and those of you who don't are very fortunate indeed. There are all sorts of studies out there showing you should do you "kegel" exercises. Some research now say you shouldn't do your kegel exercises but you should squat instead. When it all comes down to it, we need to identify the true problem before we can find an answer.

Stress Incontinence= (my very own definition) is when you leak urine when some sort of pressure or stress is placed on the bladder. Or pressure in the abdomen, which in turn places pressure on the bladder. Examples of this are coughing, sneezing, laughing, exercise, jumping on a trampoline, and even sex.

Urge Incontinence= is when you ignore that full bladder feeling for so long and for so many years (as many moms do) and then your body starts ignoring the full bladder sensation. Then your body is trained to only feel full right at the very last second and if you don't go to the bathroom right then you leak urine.

Very rough definitions and both of these conditions have variables and outliers and there can be a combination of the two. Sometimes people have problems because they don't empty their bladders completely when they use the bathroom. Often it takes a lot of shifting back and forth, leaning forward, and even coughing to empty all the way. The list goes on and on.

So whats the good news? There are answers. Not all of these problems require surgery. Sometimes bladder training and/or medication is enough to fix these problems. However, if surgery is needed there are many minimally invasive options. Ask your provider.

Questions? Ask me. I would love to write some follow up posts.

Reflections on Breastfeeding

A wonderful fan posted this video on our facebook page today. I love it.

Sick

I secretly pride myself in my strong immune system. I exercise, eat well, sleep 7-8 hours every night, get my flu shot, wash my hands, but I am not a germ-a-phobe. I feel like all of these things help me to stay very healthy. When all of my family gets sick I am the one who stays strong.

Unfortunately my luck ran out. This week I have been fighting off the nasty cough. I have been prescribing z-packs (antibiotics) and phenergan with codeine cough syrup to patients left and right. Even though I know that the nasty cough is usually just a virus.

Instead of jumping right to the antibiotics that most people ask for and want, I started with my muccinex, echinacea, airborne, cough drops, hot teas, ibuprofen, sudafed, and allergy meds *just in case*. I thought treating my symptoms would help me function. And function I did.

Until last night when this cough kicked my butt. After 4 days of the nasty cough I called my FNP (family nurse practitioner) and had her listen to my lungs to make sure they weren't full of junk- because I sure was coughing up a bunch of it. She gave me a z-pack and cough syrup which I eagerly dropped off in hopeful anticipation of the cessation of my nasty cough.

I was afraid the cough syrup would put me right to bed, so I spent a little while with my family and then I figured 9 was a good bedtime so I guzzled my cough syrup and laid down in bed. I woke up from a deep sleep at 10. I started coughing. Coughing so hard that my husband grabbed the humidifier and turned that on. Right after that I quickly remembered the fastest way to get my husband to run from a room is to start hacking up phlegm. I sat on the side of my bed, dry heaving, coughing up crud, trying to breathe and after an hour it finally subsided.

I do feel much better today after lying around all day long, but seriously. Why isn't there a vaccine against the cough? I mean seriously, I know there are a ton of strains, but we make a flu vaccine and there are a ton of strains of the flu.

I guess I will chalk this up and "I paid my dues" and hopefully avoid another year of sickness. I will say that I am thankful I am not pregnant because I would try to not be taking any of these meds if I was.

So how many of you are or have been sick so far this year? How do you survive? What do you do to help get better? What do you do with your kids?

Spacing Babies

I read once that having your children 3 years apart was the healthiest for the mother's body. I had no idea what this meant when I read it, but it stuck with me. I just knew that all of my babies would be between 2 and 3 years apart, because if I wanted to have 4 kids I had to have them close so I wouldn't be an old lady when I had my babies and because 3 years was the "healthiest."

So my baby is turning 3 in April. THREE. tres. 3.

Where is my next baby?

Did my next baby get lost in between new jobs, changing hospitals, growing a business, short selling a house, a giant lawsuit, depression and counseling, guilt of being a working mom, rising cost of daycare, marital stress, my mirena IUD, convenience, blogging, pinterest?

I am finally to the point in my life where the thought of baby number three is entering my life. It is that strange feeling how sometimes life doesn't go as planned. I haven't wanted a baby yet because for some reason I knew it wasn't the right time. The some reason could have been a number of the reasons above- but I promise it wasn't because of blogging or pinterest :)

Or it could have been just because having another baby at this point in my life wasn't what was best for my family. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. But for now my IUD is happily in place until I decide it wise part ways.

What about you? How did or are you spacing your children? Advice?

Technical Difficulties

If you are having problems reaching our website you can email us at Ashley@laborlooks.com to place your order! Sorry about any inconvenience you may experience.

Breastfeeding at a Friend's House

Another one of my favorite breast feeding stories is when my daughter was about 8 weeks old. It was right before I started back at work. I wanted to get out of the house so I went over to a girlfriend's house. She had 2 wild boys running around while she was getting their lunch ready and I was just holding my baby and chatting with her while she did her thing.

Once she really started prepping lunch for her boys I knew it was time to nurse. I was standing in the kitchen and I discretely lifted my shirt and started nursing my daughter. I kept chatting and she got lunch on the table and drinks and got them all situated. We finished our conversation as her boys headed up to the table and started eating. As they were mid meal I finished up nursing and then went over to the table and started talking with her boys.

She jumped up and said, "Oh, you probably need to nurse your baby. Do you want to use the back room?"

I started to laugh as I told her that I had just finished.

When was the last time you nursed and no one had any idea that you had just fed your baby/toddler?

Nursing in Ikea

Neither Ashley or I are nursing right now. We have both spent our fair share of time nursing though. I am not sure how good Ashley's stories are of nursing in public, but one of my favorites was nursing my daughter in Ikea.

I praise Ikea (at least the one near my house) for having family bathrooms, having family area where nursing is encouraged- they have chairs and diaper changing stations and even small little sinks for the little ones. It is nice and refreshing. Maybe because they are a European company??

Anyway, here I am, trying to pick out some new Ikea furniture. I believe it was a new TV stand? But I had my 6 month old daughter in tow with my husband and my mother in law. We were on the bottom floor and searching through rows and rows of boxes trying to find the right item. Cue tired, hungry baby. So I sit down on top of one of those flat boxes with a bed or a night stand or a desk in it and I start nursing my baby. I don't have a cover nor do I feel like I need one. My mother in law is slightly embarrassed once she notices what I am doing... well, she doesn't notice... she just realizes that I am not following her anymore so she starts looking for me and my husband tells her I stopped to nurse.

(By this point in our relationship my mother in law already knows I am a crazy hippie midwife so she quickly realizes not to say anything because it would be wasted words. )

About 5 minutes later an employee sort of strolls over to me, probably an 18 year old male, very nice and very polite, and he casually mentions that they have an excellent nursing area if I would prefer to do "that" somewhere more private. (he said that only because I am sure breastfeeding or nursing were scary words to him that hadn't been used much in his life.)

**poor kid** I wasn't embarrassed in the slightest but he was so nervous trying to talk to me and let me know that I had another option. The whole time he was talking he was trying not to look at me and I am sure it was because he didn't want to upset me.

So I could have taken this two ways. I could have been annoyed, furious, or outraged that this young man dared to tell me to nurse somewhere different. Assuming he was treating me like a second class citizen and making me feel like I wasn't allowed to feed my baby how and where I wanted to.

OR

I could have taken it as a nice young employee who probably listened to his new employee orientation when someone told him that nursing was allowed in the store, but to offer mothers a more private place if they felt more comfortable somewhere else.

What happened after that is I thanked him so much for the offer, I was aware of the nursing area, but I was almost finished and I was very comfortable where I was at- sitting on some random box in the middle of the store. Truly I wasn't comfortable, but I was almost done and I really didn't want to get up. So the young man walked away, I finished up, and then I met my husband and mother in law at the check out and went home. End of story.

Fashion Friday: Gap

I am really liking the jean look again. It come in and out of style, but I guess if Gap is doing it again it would be safe for me to pull my non-pant jean items back out of storage? Maybe? Maybe not?

Either way, this is super cute:
Image from Gap.com http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=6035&vid=1&pid=102304&scid=102304002

Pinterest

When I was searching through Pinterest today I typed "BABY" in the search box.

The first 10 out of 15 photos were of baby animals. Seriously? Who is pinning these things??

What do you search for on Pinterest?