3 weeks!

It's amazing how much longer it feels than 3 weeks. Thanks everyone for their comments on the blog or via email regarding my last post. He gained 3oz at his appointment on Tuesday (now up to 8lb 11oz) and they said they like to see .5-1oz per day, so at .75oz per day we were right in there. We don't need to go back now until his one month appointment on the 9th. We definitely have our good days and bad days. It's funny because he was good at latching on the left for awhile, but that seems to have switched to the right and now that's his better side. Babies don't make much sense!

It's amazing to see his development and changes on a daily basis. He is still sleeping like a champ and is happiest in the morning. His worst time of the day is the evenings, but last night he was actually fairly settled, so that surprised us! Someone gave us a mirror that hangs in the crib. I took it out of the box to show it to him earlier this week and his reaction was less than impressed. Now he can't get enough of it. He also really likes the playmat I set up for him the other day. He's more awake now when he feeds and he tries to flip all around (all while holding my nipple in his mouth, ouch!). We need to go to the drugstore this afternoon and we're going to attempt the carrier and head over to a farmer's market that's going on nearby.

PS - I'll be glad when this blog isn't just about babies again. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything else going on in my life right now! I am ridiculously excited to go to the farmer's market this afternoon, that's how lame it is around here.

Breastfeeding woes

I'm sure you've seen other posts with the same title. Actually, maybe you haven't. It seems lots of mothers don't like to admit that breastfeeding is really. freaking. hard. until you yourself admit to THEM that it's hard. There certainly is a stigma attached to admitting this. Well, it's hard and painful. Oh my god is it painful. My friend pointed out that it makes no evolutionary sense for it to be so painful as that's the main reason most woman throw in the towel and shouldn't they WANT to keep feeding their child?? I can completely understand why people stop. I don't get excited when it's time to feed him again, I don't feel a nice bond while we do it. I do it because my body is producing the milk to give to him.

Adam will be 3 weeks old on Thursday and it feels like we've been battling this for months. He latched on beautifully as soon as he was born, but his interest in latching waned while we were in the hospital. He was losing weight, which is normal, but since he wasn't really interested in nursing the colostrum-which meant a very frustrated baby and mother-we ended up finger feeding him formula. Starting on the Wednesday after he was born, he has only received breastmilk, either by nursing or by expressing it and finger feeding him. Getting him to latch on was still extremely painful and I was in tears most of the time. I had a huge crack slicing across one of my nip.ples and the other side wasn't much better. I went to see a lactation consultant and she was great. Of course he latched on like a pro and probably had the best feed of his life. When she was instructing me on how to fix things she said, 'Use one hand to do this, one hand to do that, and one hand to do this.' See...you need to have three hands to nurse your child! Even with my lacking a third hand I was able to get to a point where it actually doesn't hurt when he latches on. However, they hurt pretty much all the rest of the time. The let-down hurts, they're heavy, engorged, and everything is sensitive. It feels like little needles are poking all around. I'm afraid I've been lazy with his latch and now we're backtracking a bit. I got a nice electric pump, so I'm hoping that will help to give me a break periodically and allow things to settle down. I'm also looking forward to my husband being able to give him bottles and bond with him a bit more. He's really wonderful and helpful to me when I'm nursing, but I know he wishes he could do more and seeing me in tears leaves him feeling a bit helpless.

By Adam's first pediatrician appointment he was back up to 8.4lbs from a low of 7.7lbs in the hospital. By two weeks he was back to his birthweight of 8.8lbs and he's been primarily nursing. We only used formula once and that was because everything hurt so bad I couldn't even express. Apparently, this still isn't good enough and the doctor would have like to see more of a gain from him (although she did admit a gain is better than a loss!). After days of him eating every hour and lots of pain, this is really frustrating. We're back for another weight check tomorrow. He's been eating like crazy, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

I've been told it gets better and at this point I'm setting mini-goals for myself with the thought that it WILL get better. I'm taking it all on a week by week basis!

Adam!

Sorry for the silence, but I imagine everyone can figure out why I haven't been able to update! Adam was born on Thursday, September 6th at 4am via c section. He was 8lbs 8oz and 22in long! The weight didn't surprise us (well, it surprised us that it wasn't more), but his length sure did! He definitely gets that from his dad!

My water broke at home at 8am on Wednesday morning. Since it wasn't a big gush and I wasn't sure if that's what really happened or not, I sent my husband off to work and told him I would evaluate the situation. I called my doctor and she told me to head up to L&D to have them check it out. There was no doubt that's what happened, so we were admitted around 11:30am. I was 4-5 cm and 50% effaced. I wasn't having any contractions (at least that I could feel), so they put me on pitocin, which didn't thrill me, but I didn't really have much choice since my body didn't seem to be interested in doing it on its own. They had to keep ramping it up as the contractions still weren't that strong, so by 4:30pm I was ready for an epidural. Eventually they put in a monitor to see how strong the contractions were. I guess they should have been around 180 (180 what? I don't know), but mine, even with high doses of pitocin were only between 140 and 160. Around 11pm I was checked and I was 8cm, 100% effaced, and the baby was only at 0 station (it needed to be at -2). My doctor came back to check me again at 3am and there was no progress. At that point, since my water had been broken for so long, they opted for a c section. I was totally okay with this and I was just glad that I didn't have to try pushing for 2 hours before that decision was made. The baby wasn't in distress, but seemed to be a little too cozy in there! He was born at 4am on the dot and he was perfect!

 

He has the longest toes of all time. Again, just like his dad! 

Using the shushing technique to calm him down. It actually works, even if he's not so sure about it!

 

One week old! Hanging out with his buddies in the pack and play. 

He likes to stare at the imagines around the edge.

Due Date!

Okay, baby, here it is...your due date. TIME TO COME OUT!!!!! Mommy wants to walk/sit/sleep without pain, wear non-maternity clothes, eat an italian sub, drink more than a sip of daddy's beer, and most of all...meet you!!!

At my last appointment I was almost 2cm dilated and still 50% effaced. If I don't go before my next appointment on Tuesday she'll do a sweep and if that doesn't get things going, we'll induce on Wednesday. When she told me that last Monday I was kind of hesitant to induce, but now I just want to get this show on the road!