Jaaaaay! Ohhhhh! Beeeeeeeee!

Huz got the job!
I'm so excited, you'd think I got the job or something...psssht!

He starts on the 19th.

To celebrate, we had lunch at Jack in the Box.
(I know, living the dreeeeaaaam.....)

We're both nervous though, as this is a very different position for him, as it is ALL sales.
He's had sales jobs before, but this takes it to a different level.

We were kinda skeptical about sales jobs in the beginning, because we've both experienced the seedier side of sales, and the hell that is working for commission-only....shudder...


BUT, this company is reputable, established and is NOT comm-only.

Pay is salaried plus commission, so we can live with that.
Also? The base pay is more than he was making before and they offer benefits.
Yippee!

He gets a gas stipend, work laptop/phone (a smart one, even!) too!. 
Faaaaancy.

He'll be working much longer hours than he was before, like 60 hrs a week (but as we all know, it's hard to get anywhere career-wise working only 40)  and for the first 30 to 90 days he'll have to commute from Rancho to Burbank every day....kinda gross, right?

But, hey! It's a paycheck! A glorious, steady paycheck!

Still, it'll be a tough transition. For all of us.
Especially with Huz having been home for the last 4 months.

We will adjust though (like you do), and be fine, I'm sure.
 Please keep us in your thoughts as we do all this easy-breezy adjusting though, kay? Thanks!

We are over-the-freaking-moon...
Hopeful that maybe this will be the start of some good things for our family.
We could really use some good things...

HUGE THANKS to all of you who've cheered us on, sent us job links, and were generally awesome in our lives! It means a lot, and your support is invaluable!

Much love!

Maybe this means he'll be a butt man....

Owen is HERE!

As of Wednesday, October 28th at 1:05pm, my perfect little man made his grand entrance into the world!

8 lbs, 7 oz, 19 inches long.

He is an absolute ANGEL, and I could not ask for a better (or more gorgeous) baby.

{For pics, check out http://lookathowcuteiam.blogspot.com}

Well, except for one thing...he hates my boobs.

I reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllly wanted to breast feed. The bonding, the nutritional benefits, etc. I studied up, armed myself with the right gear, and gathered resources--I was amped.

My son, not so much.

He would not latch on to save his life. Granted, we had some obstacles, like my inverted nipples and his tendency to draw in his lower lip, but I was assured by the lactation consultants (or "Nipple Whisperers" as they were deemed by my hubby) that with persistence and patience, he would be on the boob in no time.

After 4 days of him screaming every time I put him to the nipple and me crying because I felt like a monster of a mother, the NWs changed their tune.

Now, they said—“You can pump and feed. The breast just doesn’t work for everybody”

Great.

So home from the hospital we went, latchless.

I was totally bummed. I felt like a failure. Would I think that any other mother was a failure? No, but this was not someone else, this was me, and the standards are less forgiving…

But, finally after trying to get him to love the boob at home only to more tears from the both of us, I decided to let it go and focus solely on pumping.

Yay Pumping!

Or not.

I had been pumping in the hospital every 3 hours, and continued that trend when I got home…

My milk wasn’t coming in.

More crying and crushing feelings of inadequacy ensued.

So I called the NWs. They assured me that my milk would come in, and that it was common for Cesarean births to sometimes cause a delay in production.

Their official line was basically: “If you Pump it, Milk will come”

Okay, fine.

So every 2-3 hours, I’m pumping, and when I can stand it, I’ll pump every hour and a half.

I feel like a dairy cow.

All of that effort and my production is still super low. We’re having to formula feed him almost exclusively, which again, makes me feel (however irrationally) like LoserMommy.

This Wednesday marks 2 weeks. Unless the Nipple River starts flowing by then, I’m packing away my pump.

I don’t want to be one of those women that gives up too soon, but at the same time, I don’t want to beat a dead mammary either.

I feel like all I do is pump, and it’s not even effective. Kinda like salt in the wounds….

I might as well spend that time enjoying Owen, instead of feeling bad about myself and torturing my nips, because on top of all the boob vs bottle drama—I’m healing from a C-section and as those of you who read this blog regularly know, a pretty physically debilitating pregnancy in the first place, which isn’t going so hot if I’m honest.


My poor husband.

He has been SO incredible in helping me and taking care of Owen, but I know he’s pretty sure I’ve lost my mind, because there has been a massive amount of tears and frustration since our son was born, and I don’t think he expected that.

In his defense, I don’t think I did either.

Neither one of us could have anticipated the feeding problems or how physically wrecked I would STILL be after coming home and how emotionally taxing that would be.

So it’s been tough, but every day gets a little better, so we are hanging in there.

And most importantly, we have Owen…our healthy, sweet, little monkey who makes us both giddy.

I swear, I could just stare at him sleeping all freakin’ day.

That’s not creepy, just maternal, right?

"Early Father's Day", and "To Crash, or not to Crash?"

Father's Day came early this year in our house. This was due to hectic travel schedules on everyone's part. My FIL is leaving tomorrow morning for a business trip, and then on Thursday, my husband and maybe myself (more on the maybe part in a minute), will be flying to Atlanta to visit his brother and his fiancee.

We won't be back until late Sunday night which meant that we had to celebrate this weekend....

I decided that for F Day, I really wanted to surprise my hubby with the baby's gender. How perfect is that, right?

Well, my OBGYN attempted to thwart my plans. He wanted me to wait until I was 20 (to date, I'm almost 19) weeks to have my ultrasound, so he scheduled me for the 22nd of June. Well, BOO on that, sir!

I was soooo bummed! But then, a friend suggested something brilliant:
Just go to one of those 3D imaging places, and pay them to do the ultrasound.

(She's a genius)

Off I went! Granted we're trying to save money and all, but this was too perfect!


After almost a half an hour of the baby hiding the goods, my MIL and I got the news:

It's a BOY!!

I totally started bawling. Happy Tears, of course!


I found the cutest little frames that have the "What are Boys Made of?" rhyme on them, and inserted the two best u/s pics....

We presented one to my FIL and one to my hubs last night.

The look on his face was PRICELESS. :)

He's over the MOON to be having a son, and it's kinda cool because my husband was the firstborn son to his parents, and the first grandchild to his parents, and our son will follow that line as well.

Get ready world, Owen Christopher Guillermo is on his way!

Now on on to the 2nd part of today's blog--

Like I mentioned at the top of this post, my husband and I are supposed to fly out on the 18th, and spend the weekend with his brother and our soon-to-be sister-in-law, to celebrate their respective bachelor/ette parties, but I think that I may be bowing out.

This makes me very sad, as I was really looking forward to spending time with them, but the problem is, well, our lodging arrangement while there.

My husband and I will not actually be together for most of the trip, as he'll be going out to the woods to rent a cabin and do "manly-man" man things with his brother and the other groomsmen.

I, on the other hand, will stay with my new SIL, as we celebrate bridal things, and have Girls Night Out, etc....

Awesome, I know. Except for the fact that I would spend three nights crashed on their couch in a very cool, but small loft-type studio.

This is going to make me sound like a spoiled brat, but I can't really crash on people's couches/floors anymore. Not with my 80-year-old-lady joints.

And as I mentioned before, pregnancy has compounded this problem quite a bit. I'm pretty much in pain all the time.

In the middle of the night, it's worse because of sleeping in one position or another for an extended period of time. I have a hard time getting up and out of bed, I have to hobble to the bathroom (constantly, as little man has taken up residence directly on my bladder), and sometimes I don't always make it, ahem, successfully. The pain and stiffness issue should go back to the level I'm used to after i give birth, but it doesn't help the situation at hand now.

As you can see, this doesn't really bode well for crashing on a couch (one that I have never seen, nor have any idea if it's actually big enough to handle a 5-months-pregnant disabled woman--both my BIL and SIL are no bigger than a minute), and navigating terrain in the dark that I'm not familiar with.

I just don't think it's going to end well, and my husband hasn't been okay with the arrangement from the get-go. He doesn't want me to be uncomfortable and sleepless for 3 days, but mostly, he's afraid I'll fall down and hurt myself.

At first, I just thought he was being a worry wort, but given my pain level these days and my recent falls, I've started to feel apprehensive myself.

Our original plan was to get me a hotel/motel room, so that the bathroom would be steps from the bed, and I'd be able to leave the bathroom lights on all night to help me see...

But as this trip is already breaking our bank as it is, that arrangement is out of the question.


I want to go! I'd hate to miss out on this, especially since we're missing out on the wedding in October.

So what's a girl to do? Do I just go armed with cane and a nightlight, suck it up, and hope for the best? Or do I resign myself to staying home?

Sometimes, my Cerebral Palsy really pisses me off.

But, I can't be too whiny. The most important thing is that my husband will get to spend some time with his brother, which he's stoked for, and lest we forget:

We're having a SON!