One Month Checkup

Kylie had her one month checkup this week and she is growing beautifully! She is now 8 pounds 12 ounces and 21.5 inches long. The doctor says she looks wonderful and has great head control. We talked about the feeding issues and she says supplementing with a little bit of formula is nothing to be worried about. She also said that it is pretty normal for babies her age to still be waking up every 2-3 hours and usually when they hit 10 pounds is when they will start to stretch it out to about an 11/3/7 schedule. Then around 13 pounds is when they usually will drop the 3am feeding. She also said it was impressive that mommy was so skinny already, so that made me happy since I've been feeling not so confident about my body right now. I keep meaning to start working out again, it just seems like any time I have a few minutes while Kylie is sleeping I have to pump, or do a load of laundry, or unload the dishwasher, or oh shit I forgot to eat lunch again. Anyways, back to the appointment. Kylie got her second Hepatitis shot and she only screamed for a minute. When we take her back next month she will get the rest of her shots and hopefully get her ears pierced!

4 Weeks

My baby is going to be a month old tomorrow, how is that possible already? Kylie is growing and changing every day and is really developing a personality of her own. She is ridiculously impatient. When she is hungry, she wants to eat immediately, and if she does not she gets majorly pissed. You know she is really mad when she does what we call the silent scream. Her face gets bright red and her mouth is wide open but nothing is coming out until all of a sudden......WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I can't help it but I have to laugh every time she does it. She is very strong and can hold her head up for a long time and look from side to side. She smiles, though so far only in her sleep. She is starting to grab on to things, like my hair or my shirt when I am holding her. Her eyes seem to be getting darker and I think they will eventually be green or brown and her hair seems to be slowly thinning out. She loves to cuddle and be held and sometimes that is the only way she will fall asleep. Speaking of sleep, she is still not on any kind of schedule or routine. She gets up every 2-3 hours to eat around the clock leaving mommy with very little time to sleep.

As far as the feeding goes, I am still pumping trying very hard to increase my supply and it is finally working little by little. I starting drinking a special tea and a lot of water and I pump so much I feel like I am always hooked up to that damn machine. I've reached my breaking point a few times now and claimed I was quitting all this nonsense and just giving her formula, but I haven't actually done it yet. It is so hard being a pumper because I need to pump every time Kylie eats at a minimum, even in the middle of the night. So I warm her bottle, usually while she is screaming, feed her, hold her until she is asleep, put her down and pray that she stays sleeping, a lot of times she doesn't so I pick her back up, then when she finally passes out I have to get up and pump for about 20 minutes. Then we repeat it all 2 hours later! I am slowly trying to get her back to just the breast strictly for the convenience factor and while she does a lot better with the latch she still just doesn't drink enough to get full leaving us in a never ending cycle of feed/cry/feed. Hopefully that will change soon.

I am feeling pretty much back to normal. I sometimes have just a little bit of discomfort when I move or sit the wrong way. I am in most of my normal clothes although some still fit a little bit different than they used to. I still have 7 pounds to lose to get to my pre-pregnancy weight and they don't seem to be going anywhere on their own so I need to start exercising. I just can't seem to find the time or energy. Jason gets up at 2:30am for work so on those nights I'm on my own. Even though I love being home with my baby girl all the time and I have one of the most difficult and stressful jobs there is, I sometimes thing it would be easier to go to work. But being a mommy is by far more rewarding!

Breastfeeding = FAIL

It's been a struggle since day one. First she was having problems latching on properly. Once she figured that out, my milk came in and then she couldn't latch on again. For about a week or so, we struggled. Sometimes she got the latch right away, sometimes it took her a while causing her to get majorly pissed off and frustrated. Then I was introduced to the nipple shield which helped us out tremendously with the latch. Things were going well until last week when one night she was inconsolable. For more than three hours she was feeding then screaming and acting still hungry so I'd feed her again, and we repeated this like 5 or 6 times until she finally fell asleep. By the start of the third hour, my nipples were raw. Every time she latched I was brought to tears and pretty much cried through the whole feeding, praying that she would finally be satisfied so my nipples could rest. I was at my breaking point. She finally went down and when we woke up in the morning there was blood on her shirt. I looked down and my nipple was literally cracked open. Luckily, I had already purchased my pump so instead of nursing her I pumped and gave her my milk from a bottle that day. Pumping started off good, I got about 2.5 ounces and she gobbled it up. As the day went on each time I pumped I got less and less. By early evening I was only getting about half an ounce from each breast, and this was after at least 2 hourse without feeding or pumping. No wonder she was so fussy, she must have been starving! She was drinking the milk faster than I could produce more. At that point I decided to give her a bottle of formula. She drank it all and when she was done, she was finally satisfied. I felt like a failure, and felt terrible for causing her to be hungry.

The next day I called her pediatrician because I was concerned that she wasn't getting enough to eat, and she hadn't had a bowel movement in 48 hours, which is a symptom. They agreed with me and suggested I pump for the day to try to monitor how much she was eating and to suppliment with formula if necessary. What do you know, she pooped twice that day. On Sunday, I spoke to the lactation consultant to talk about what was going on and she wasn't convinced that supply was the issue. She thought it may have been just normal fussiness, but she wanted us to have Kylie's weight checked again to see if she was gaining weight as appropriate. Monday morning we were off to the pediatrician and Kylie weighed in at 7 pounds 4 ounces, pretty much right where she was supposed to be. So now I'm happy that she is gaining weight, but really confused about what was going on with her behavior.

After her weight check, I went back to breastfeeding because I figured it was working, and that night the fussiness started again. WTF??? I was up with her all night and all morning. I don't think we slept at all unless she was laying on my chest. By around noon I was exhausted and fed up so I gave her a bottle of formula and BAM out like a light. I don't care what the lactation consultant says, my baby is hungry. Everyone says you need to trust your instincts when it comes to parenting and this is what mine are telling me. I am now exclusively pumping and supplimenting with formula when necessary while trying really hard to increase my milk supply. I'm feeling a little bit disappointed but in a way I actually like pumping. It gives me a little bit more freedom giving Jason a chance to feed her every once in a while. Breastfeeding has most difinitely been one of the hardest things I have ever tried to do!

Just the two of us

Jason is back to work and Kylie and I survived our first week alone. She is still sleeping a lot more during the day than she is at night, but slowly she is staying awake for longer periods of time. Nights on the other hand have been a challenge. She gets hungry about every two hours, which I can handle, but then usually once a night she will "cluster feed" where she is pretty much feeding up to two hours pretty much straight through. I'll feed her, change her if I need to, usually she will eat a little more and fall asleep. I put her down and not even 10 minutes later she's up again and still hungry. We repeat this 4, 5, or even 6 times in a row. After a few days of this I started to become completely exhausted and frustrated because I was starting to wonder if something was wrong because how could she possibly still be hungry but apparently this is normal behavior that hopefully won't last forever. Most nights she does get a good 3 or 4 hour stretch of sleep, which definitely helps out Mommy a little bit. I especially feel bad for Jason because he has to be at work at 4am and as much as I try not to wake him up, sometimes we do and he ends up being tired all day at work.

We had our first poop explosion this week. I thought it would be a good idea to change Kylie on my lap. I left the diaper underneath her just in case, and of course she starts pooping. OK its all going in the diaper, we're good, when all of a sudden it explodes out and all over me. Jason and I are dying laughing at this point and next thing you know, she starts peeing too. Yup, I'm covered in baby poo and pee, and there's nothing we can do but laugh about it! Lesson learned, do NOT change a newborn baby on your lap!

I am feeling almost 100% back to normal, finally. The pain and bleeding are both almost completely gone, the belly is pretty much completely flat although it is still pretty jiggly, and I still have a few more pounds to loose. It has been so nice out lately that I keep saying I'm going to take Kylie out for a walk around the block, but between feedings that last an hour long each, naps, and housework that needs to get done, I just haven't been able to find the time or energy yet. I'm hoping by next week I feel good enough to start doing a light workout at home a few days a week.

Other than that, we are still just still adjusting to being parents and learning what works for our baby girl and what doesn't. Hopefully soon we will start getting into more of a routine and things will start to get a little bit easier.

The First Week

We made it through the first week with our beautiful baby girl, and I'm not gonna lie, there have been some parts that have been really hard. The two nights we spent in the hospital were by far the worst. Kylie has her days and nights completely mixed up. She sleeps great during the day and wants to be up all night. We were completely exhausted and we really didn't know what we were doing yet. We had a little bit of trouble with the breastfeeding at first. Kylie was having a difficult time latching on, and therefore was becoming hungry, frustrated, and cranky. And at the same time I was in a lot of pain from the labor and the stitches. But, little by little things were coming together. Jason is a natural for someone who pretty much has never held a baby before and we were able to somewhat take turns trying to keep Kylie happy.

Friday before we were discharged, they drew Kylie's blood and determined that she was slightly jaundiced. She was just six tenths of a point over the acceptable limit, but since it was the weekend they wanted to stay on the safe side and send her home with a bili blanket. It is a machine that provides phototherapy to remove the excess biliruben in her blood. Basically a mat with lights in it that she was supposed to lay on 24 hours a day. This thing was the biggest pain in the ass ever. The cord was never long enough, it was always falling off, and just made caring for Kylie in general very difficult. She didn't seem to be bothered by it though. She slept a lot better at home than she did in the hospital and I really think it was because she was eating a lot better.

Monday morning we took her to the pediatrician. Since I, again, was not prepared for the birth of my child, I didn't not get around to interviewing and choosing a pediatrician beforehand. We went with a recommendation from my doctor and figured if we were unhappy we could always change later. We had met her a few times in the hospital when she came to check on Kylie and she seemed nice, but as soon as we got to the office I started to notice things I didn't like. The office is in a newer building but the paint on the walls was all chipping off, the benches we ripping, I don't know it just seemed run down to me. The exam room had the same feeling. The nurses weren't rude, but weren't friendly either, they just did their job. We saw the doctor and everything was fine there, I have no complaints about her. While waiting for the nurse to come draw Kylie's blood to check the biliruben levels, Kylie got fussy so I started nursing her. The nurse came back with a warm compress and told us to put it on her heel and left. If I was by myself there is no way I would have had enough hands to do all this. So I'm nursing Kylie and Jason is holding this thing on her foot for like ten minutes when another nurse comes in and says she is going to bring another baby in the room to weigh it. Umm....come again? I should have said no but I guess it caught me off guard and next thing you know the nurse is back with not only another baby, but a mom, and the dad starts walking in too until the mom told him to wait! This to me was unacceptable so I think we might be looking for a new pediatrician. Anyways, Kylie's levels came back within the normal limits so no more bili blanket, THANK GOD!

We also introduced our dogs to Kylie this week and it went well. At first they were sort of scared of her and very curious but they seem to have adjusted well. They like to look at her and sniff her and lick her, although we try not to let them do that. They seem to be getting used to having her around and Kylie couldn't really care less about them bugging her.

The rest of the week has been sleep, eat, poop, and repeat. We are getting better every day that goes by, and just now can I say that I am starting to feel a LITTLE bit better. I am actually pleasantly surprised and how fast my belly has deflated. It is already almost completely flat again, although it is still very squishy, and I have lost about 15 of the 25 pounds I gained. My nipples are sore and cracked and hurt pretty bad. I go back and forth at night between having hot flashes and the chills, and Kylie still has bad nights and better nights. It is hard, but so incredibly worth it. Kylie has such a little personality already, and I could literally just stare at her all day long. I still can hardly believe she's here!