Working from Home

Since Emily was out of school two days this week, I worked from home so I could stay with her. Luckily, she was feeling good enough to take long naps and play by herself (or with Gracie and Bella) for the majority of both days. I tried to plan her naps to coincide with my conference calls so I didn't have to explain the singing in the background :).

I had one call that I was only a participant on, so I kept the phone on mute and let Emily sit in my lap for part of it. She decided to help me update a spreadsheet I was looking at--I think this picture is just hilarious, because it looks like she was caught in the middle of something mischevious!

Pure Torture

I guess it was inevitible that I would begin to travel again for work--I had just hoped it would be a while before I had to make my first overnight trip. Unfortunately, I got word on Friday afternoon that I needed to be in Denver this week...COLORADO! Seriously, do people realize this place is 1,500 miles away from my sweet angel?? It's hard to even enjoy a beautiful city like Denver when all I can think about is going home to everything I love. This is not fun.

So here I sit, pumping in a hotel room in the middle of the night and hoping I'll be able to make it through airport security tomorrow with my breastmilk. I even printed the guidelines I found online, hoping the agents will be easy to work with when I present my cooler for inspection. I'm also hoping that I'll get home tomorrow night right about the time Emily is waking up for her midnight feeding :).

Back to Work

Monday proved to be one of the most difficult days of my life--none of the preperatory classes we took got me ready to get up in the morning and leave this precious little bundle!

We had planned to transition Emily to bottles during the day at least over the weekend so we'd know what to expect when I went back to work; unfortunately, she has been refusing to breastfeed since about Thursday, after she was fitted in her harness. I don't think she can get in a good position, and I know how uncomfortable it must be for her to try. So the switch to bottles happened a little earlier than expected, and now she's eating 4 ounces with every feeding, and is wanting to eat every 2 hours! It makes me happy that our little girl has turned into such a piglet, but it worries me that I won't be able to keep up with her by pumping now. After only one day at work, we're halfway through my freezer stash (yes, now I realize I should have been storing milk a lot longer than I did), and it takes me at least two sessions at the pump to get enough milk for one feeding.

I've increased the number of times I'm pumping now, and hopefully will be able to increase my supply--I'm also planning on eating lots of oatmeal, which is said to boost milk volume as well. I sure didn't want to have to consider supplementing with formula this early, but I'm afraid we might soon be faced with that.