Sunday night blues

Geez, it's been a super fast week! Nothing too terribly exciting happened. I just sort of stuck close to home most of the week to get lots of quality time with Roxanne. On Thursday I took Roxanne into my office to meet some of my co-workers. It was very difficult for me, but everyone loved Roxanne. They all acted shocked that I was already coming back, so I politely suggested that they take it up with the short-term disability insurance that only pays you for five weeks of maternity leave. The HR women at the L.A. office kept saying that I was welcome to take a full twelve weeks, but if we could afford for me to not get paid for 7 weeks then we could probably afford for me to quit! Not that I told her that. I just acted like I was ready to come back.

On Friday my mom came down and we went to a consignment sale and then out to lunch with Roxanne. It was nice. Then Kendree and Jon and the girls came down for dinner on Friday night. Roxanne was really a pretty good baby the whole day. I went to Gato Bizco with my mom for lunch on Friday, and Roxanne was totally flirting with a hipster boy in the booth behind us. And at Flying Biscuit, where we went Friday night for dinner, she was totally mesmerized by the sunflowers they have painted on the wall. She did fuss some. Mainly because of the whole bottle situation. I bought orthodontic nipples by Playtex, and they are definitely more agreeable to her, and she will sometimes take up to an ounce at a time with them now, but she still hates it and fusses intermittenly. It takes hours to get her to eat four ounces or so, and then when I finally just give in and nurse her, she eats for forty five minutes or so.

She has started vocalizing a lot more just in the latter part of this week. She's making new noises that we haven't heard before, and she is increasingly interactive. She really watches us, even when we're not very close to her face, and she sometimes talks back a little when you talk to her. It's sad to us though, because her happiest times are in the morning and early afternoon, and she's usually just fussy in the evening. Good for Andrea (our day-care provider) but bad for us.

Tomorrow I go back to work, although Justin and I are both sick. It's been dragging for a couple of days for me, just a stuffy nose that is somehow also runny, but Justin seems a little worse off. Roxanne seems OK though, thank goodness. She's fussy today, but I think she's picking up on my mood. I'm trying as hard as possible to stay positive and not get upset, but it's the hardest thing I've ever dealt with in my life. Honestly. I know only women who have been through it understand where I'm coming from, but it's very very hard. I'm just hoping that it gets easier after this first week. I was up until 4:30am last night watching videos on YouTube and trying not to think about tomorrow. It was pretty effective, but now I'm exhausted. Sometime around 4:00am I was starting to wonder if I could get a doctor to prescribe me some valium or something (morphine?) to get through the week. Not really though. I know I'll be OK, and Roxanne will be fine, I'll just be crying a lot. And nauseated. For some reason, every time I think about dropping her off, my stomach and chest totally seize up and I feel like I have food poisoning or something. It's insane.

Well, wish me luck!