Slow and steady...

AB will be one month old tomorrow. One month!

I think I've got to call the kids by their initials. Having both their names in this blog makes it entirely too Google-able.

No real time to write, except to say that at breastfeeding support group on Thursday, AB weighed 8 pounds even. Gain: 4 ounces in 3 days. I've got to keep up the supplements until his one-month appointment on 7/30. I'm betting the pediatrician wants to see something close to 8.5 pounds.

And btw, the lactation consultant also concurred that I need to find a new pediatrician ASAP. She gave me the name of someone to call.

I'm very tired, and I need to go back through the last few posts and edit names. Certainly don't want the in-laws to see all my bitching about them. ;-)

How do my ILs drive me batshit crazy? Let me count the ways...

If I had the time, and the energy, I would enumerate them all. But I fear that would take days.

- MIL gives me constant updates on AB. If his eyes are even the slightest bit open, she proclaims "He's wide awake!!" And thinks this means she should play with him. If he has his eyes closed, "He's fahst asleep". If he cries at all, it's because "He's hungry!"

- FIL and MIL both refuse to let AB go to sleep. They want to be holding him all. the. time. If he is still, and shows signs of drowsiness, they will snap their fingers in his face or whistle loudly to wake him up. Holy shit, does this piss me off. Then when he inevitably startles, MIL will tell me "He doesn't want to sleep."

- FIL gives me no personal space while nursing. For several days, I tried going out to the living room and sitting on the couch to nurse. FIL would pace around the house and walk right up to me while I had my boob out. So I decided, screw it. If he wants to see my boobs, he can see them. Now I just sit in the family room and if he's around, he gets a free show.

- MIL talks to KB as if he's about 12 months old, high-pitched 'parentese' and all. It's incredibly condescending and annoying. I don't think KB cares for her too much.

- MIL and FIL both accost KB the second he comes home from preschool. They try to force him to give them hugs. They don't seem to understand that at this age, they would have better luck letting KB come to them.

- MIL thinks we should eat every single meal together. They will wait and wait and wait for me to eat lunch with them, even when I tell them that I am busy with AB and that they should go ahead.

- They drink water and then put the used glasses on the dish drainer as if they are clean. YUCK!!!

- They use about 6 coffee cups per day, each, instead of rinsing and re-using them. The dishwasher fills up quickly because they drink so much coffee and have several snack times every day.

- I have absolutely no personal space anymore. I feel as if I need to be entertaining them. If I want to hang out in my room, with my baby, I feel guilty that I'm not downstairs with them. If I stay downstairs with them, the conversation is stilted (or non-existent) and I am bored out of my ever-living mind.

This is going to be the longest 4 months ever. How did I forget how much they drove me insane after KB was born?

S talks about how much "help" they are/will be. Ha! They are certainly no help around the house, they are actively ruining AB's sleep/wake cycles, and just having them here is making me miserable. The only thing MIL does that is helpful is to give AB his post-BF bottle. And once the Lact-Aid arrives, she won't even be doing that.

Honestly, I wish my parents could have stayed and the ILs were the ones who had already gone back home.

Deflated

Yesterday we had another weight check at the pediatrician's office.

7 lbs, 12 oz.

Same as 5 days before. :-(

The doctor all but called me a shitty mother right to my face. He did say, "You are treading on the very edges of my patience...no, let me say it even better: You are seriously trying my patience."

So I've got to step up the supplements and figure out what in the hell is wrong with our breastfeeding mojo that AB can't gain weight unless I'm giving him extra at every feeding.

Lact-Aid is on order and I hope will be here Friday.

Oh, and my in-laws are driving me up the motherfucking wall. And they just arrived on Wednesday.

P.S.

I am very proud to say that all the supplements AB has gotten post-hospital have been expressed breast milk. Go me! :-)

During our hospital stay, my milk hadn't come in, so he got 7 1-oz shots of formula while he was under the bili lights.

So far, I've been able to keep up with his demand. Hooray for More Milk Plus!

I am not averse to formula -- KB never could get the hang of breastfeeding, and I had my own problems post-partum, so he ended up being formula-fed after about 5 months.

Still, since AB is most likely my last baby, I want to give BFing every chance to work, and I'm happy we're making good progress. I know it's early days yet, but I really, really, REALLY want to make this work.

Thanks to all of you who are cheering us on!!

Huzzah!

AB weighed 7 lbs, 12 oz at the pediatrician's office today. I was astounded!!

We are also done with the bili blanket. YEA! We can have AB snuggled in bed with us again. I missed sleeping with my little man.

We'll have another weight check on Monday. We're supposed to continue with the supplements, but I'm going to try my damnedest just to nurse more. I had already cut the supplements down to 1 extra oz per feeding for the last couple of days. Had gone up to 1.5 - 2 oz per feeding to try to put more chub on the bub.

AB is already waking up a lot more often to nurse now that he's out of the bili blanket. I will supplement after nursing if I feel like he didn't get much, but I'm not going to automatically give a bottle every time.

Tomorrow is the breastfeeding support group, so I'll get another weight check as well as a weigh-feed-weigh. I'm very curious to see if AB is taking more at a time now that he's bigger.

I think the pediatrician was also very surprised at our progress.

Will have to write more tomorrow. I'm exhausted, and need to grab a few winks before the next feeding.

Weighty matters

Went to the lactation consultant's office at the hospital today to do a weigh-feed-weigh and a naked weigh for AB.

He took almost 2 oz from me, nursing on both sides. That was mid-afternoon. He definitely drinks more in the mornings.

His naked weight? 7 lbs, 8.8 oz, after nursing. Woot! My breastmilk doesn't suck ass. We've managed about a 6 oz weight gain since Friday. Go us.

Definitely need to get a supplementer, though. I don't mind supplementing for a bit if I need to, but AB needs to get more efficient at the boob, and bottles aren't exactly helping in that department.

Better

Thanks for the comments about BFing, and the advice about block feeding. I will have to try that.

I do have "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" and have been reading the sections on slow weight gain over and over.

The bili blanket is definitely keeping AB too warm and cozy. We have to wake him to feed, and he's pretty lazy most of the time. I hope this is due to his feeling all comfy and *not* because of the bottles.

I'm going to be ordering a Lact-aid tomorrow. The environmentalist in me doesn't want all the disposable bags, but...

AB's bili level was 14.3 this morning. Yea! The pediatrician on call wasn't our doctor, so she didn't want to make the decision to take AB off the bili blanket. We'll call our doctor tomorrow to talk about next steps.

I've been pumping after every feed (and before some others) and I'm just worn out. My boobs are totally soft right now. I hope this isn't a bad sign. I'm terrified of losing my supply already. Going to lie down and try to catch a nap before the next feed.

Thanks for all the good thoughts and the advice. I have a feeling I'm going to need a lot of support in the next few weeks.

Update

AB is having a very hard time. His weight gain is not just slow, it is non-existent. His birth weight on 6/27 was 7 lbs, 9 oz. His discharge weight on 6/30 was 7 lbs, 2 oz, and he dropped to 7 lbs even a few days after that. This past Tuesday, he was still 7 lbs even. His pediatrician said we had until Friday to turn his weight around and then we were going to have to start talking about supplementing. We were sent to the lactation consultant immediately to create a plan for getting back on track.

My theory is that AB isn't getting enough of my hindmilk when he nurses. His stools have been more brown than yellow, with very few seeds. The LC suggested pumping for 5 minutes before each feeding to make sure AB gets the hindmilk sooner.

At Friday's ped. appointment, AB had only gained 1 oz. And the pediatrician said his jaundice looked worse. He sent us to the hospital to get another bilirubin check. He said if the level was 16 or above, he was going to seriously consider re-admitting AB to the NICU. It came back 17.1. I guess the ped. took pity on me, because he is giving us a chance over the weekend to treat AB at home with a bili blanket. It was delivered yesterday evening and we've been using it ever since (except for a couple of night-time feedings, which were too difficult to maneuver with the blanket).

We're also supplementing -- luckily, I had been pumping since the day after my milk came in, so I have a little stash in the freezer. I didn't want to start bottles for another couple of weeks, but I guess we will have to work on re-learning breastfeeding once AB gains weight and gets rid of his jaundice.

We go in tomorrow for another bilirubin check and I hope I'll be able to send out another update soon. It's hard for me to get online with everything going on. It is hard for KB to understand why Mommy and Daddy are so stressed out and why we are spending so much time with AB. We're trying to give both boys the attention they need but...it's tough.

I hope we don't have to keep up the bili blanket more than a couple of days.

All good thoughts are appreciated as we work on getting AB healthy.

I am hoping that, with weight gain and increasing strength, AB will get better at nursing and I can stop the pumping and supplementing. Somebody please tell me that's not wishful thinking.

Waking up a sleeping baby?

Yes/no?

Should I be waking AB up to eat every 2 hours at this stage?

Most of the time, he wants to eat somewhere between 2-3 hours after his last feeding. I try not to let him go any longer than 3 hours during the day, but should I be feeding him more often and waking him up if necessary?

KB always wanted to eat every 2 hours on the dot, so having this laid-back baby is a new experience for me.

AB eats pretty well, but I still feel like he's not draining the breast. I don't want to risk a supply problem, but I dread the idea of pumping after every feeding.

OK, you breastfeeding mamas, here's your chance to give me tons of advice. Bullet points very much appreciated in my sleep-deprived state. :-)

He's here; we're home

A*idan T*homas arrived June 27, 2008 at 1:02 pm.

Length: 20 inches
Weight: 7 lbs, 9 oz

He was kept away from me for 5 full hours after delivery because he was born with fluid in his lungs (a problem common for c-section babies). Even after the fluid was removed, his respiration rate was very high (around 100 when the doctors wanted to see < 60). I was not allowed to see him, touch him, or feed him.

This sucked mightily. But we were reunited around 6 pm Friday night and all was well until Sunday, when AB's bilirubin level (12.7) suddenly placed him in the high risk category for pathologic jaundice. He went into an isolette in the NICU (at our hospital, the same as the nursery, and luckily for me, right across from my post-partum room) around noon on Sunday.

I was able to feed him every 3 hours, but he was only allowed out of the box for 30 minutes each time.

This again sucked mightily.

Monday morning, I fed AB at 6:30 am and went back to my room to wait for the results of the morning's bilirubin test. Our pediatrician came in around 8 am to tell me that amazingly, AB's level had gone down to 10.4. In his experience, he had never seen a baby with ABO incompatibility and jaundice turn things around so fast.

In other words, my baby is a rock star!!

AB was removed from the blue lights and we were both given the go-ahead for discharge, even though we technically could have stayed until Tuesday.

Knock on wood, breastfeeding is going well, sleep is going well, and AB is a seriously mellow baby.

KB is one very proud big brother. We are trying to let him help out as much as possible, and he really is a great helper.

Much more to say, but I should take advantage of this time to sleep. Will try to post again when I can.