Better.

On Friday before I was released from the hospital, the red area on my hand was about the size of 2 half dollars next to each other. Now it's in the range of a penny/dime. The scab does look pretty nasty, but hopefully it looks well enough that the hand doctor will let me leave tomorrow without messing with my hand too much. My hand is finally not swollen anymore and I can totally move all of my fingers (Tuesday morning I could barely move any of my fingers, it was so swollen.) Also, it does not hurt at all. Still, just in case, I think I'll throw an outfit in a bag and leave it in the car just in case they try to keep me hostage. This is more of a superstition then me actually thinking I'll need it...I always get stuck there when we are the least prepared.

It is nice to be home again. Luke is finally pretty much weaned and I haven't been too uncomfortable either. Since the antibiotics I am on are pretty strong stuff, I didn't really want him exposed to them, and I was pretty much well beyond ready to wean him anyway. I had planned to wean him in January to start fertility meds...but then I got pregnant without them. And then I kept nursing because I wasn't sure how much my freezer supply was, and because it is so much EASIER than bottles/sippy cups (it doesn't start out easier, definitely, but after a few months it is much much easier.) And because I would feel bad if I miscarried and had weaned him for no reason before a year. So on we went. And then he turned 11 months and then a year and was still nursing and I would have been okay to stop at any time and kinda hoped that pregnancy would start to dry my milk up. But I didn't have the willpower to just stop, especially when he got mad and cried if I tried to give him a bottle of breastmilk instead. But I also had no desire to still keep nursing this wiggly, climbing all over while trying to nurse, 1 year old with 6 teeth that sometimes when he fell asleep nursing he would clamp down with. (Ow!) And I definitely do not want to nurse TWO of our kids of different ages at once. And not to mention, after a year plus of nursing, it will be nice to have a little break before I start all over again with a new kid.

 So anyway, this ended up pretty much ending it. Joe gave Luke some of the milk we've had in our deep freezer while I was in the hospital, and I pumped just a little bit at night and in the morning just to keep from being miserable or getting mastitis on top of my hand infection. But I was barely pumping an ounce. So after Thursday morning, I stopped pumping, and luckily it hasn't been too miserable, at least not yet. Hopefully it is almost done. Luke has been taking bottles from me with no issues and hasn't really tried to nurse. So it seems to have went down the best way possible, under the circumstances. I have never been someone who loved nursing. I mostly did it because it was easy (later), and cheap, and better for him and me. So I am surprised that I do actually miss it a bit. I think it's really more that Luke is becoming more and more toddlerish and less and less baby, and not so much nursing.

We are going through about half a month's worth of pumped breastmilk every couple days. So pretty soon we will have a deep freezer to use for once (we bought it a few months after Luke was here when it became clear our freezer was out of room for food.) I am going to start adding whole milk to the bottles to transition to that as we run out, Joe already did and it went fine, I just haven't felt like messing with it. And then we need to work on bottles to sippy cups. Luke isn't bad at drinking out of either, he just prefers bottles to sleep (which used to be nursing.) It's been such a hectic last few weeks though, bottles really aren't high on my list of things to worry about.

Aside from that, Luke doesn't seem too traumatized by my sudden disappearance. (I mean, he came and saw me in the hospital for a few hours every day, but that's hardly the same thing.) He does have issues whenever I leave the room though, that's pretty normal for his age anyway. All in all, we survived, I still have my hand, hopefully the new baby is doing okay in there, so hopefully the drama is over for this pregnancy.