Preggo Diaries: Long time no typing...

He was two weeks old yesterday (last night at 11:08pm to be exact) and today is his original due date!

Alright, we brought the kid home, so life has been turned decidedly upside down. Posts may be erratic and short from here on out. I'll try to sum up a few things for you since Killian arrived.

The day after he was born, he got the big snip. I know it's not medically necessary and all that, but we decided that it was going to be easier to explain some things later if we didn't have to have extra steps. We had to take very good care of Little Man's "little man" for about a week to ten days. It really only involved an extra step at diaper changes, so it wasn't terrible.

Also, the day after he was born, we were inundated with visitors at the hospital. My father came down for a quick visit, which was amazing! My mother and her fiance also came by and got to hold him. Mom/Grandma also witnessed his first bath, through which he screamed! He's screamed through every bath since as well! Aunt Sara came over her lunch hour, but they had just taken Kiddo for his snip-fest, so she didn't get to hold him until she came back that night with Uncle Joe and Evy.

Once I regained feeling in my legs, I was allowed to shower! That was AH-MAZING! I didn't really feel unclean by any means, but it just felt good to stand under the water for a while and kind of baby myself a bit. It wasn't as nice as that whirlpool tub though, sadly (I MUST have one I tell you!). Things were fairly quiet aside from visitors. Night was rough when he stayed with us, likely due to his operation and my trying to get the hang of nursing. Here's where I think not being on the post-partum floor really stunk: we didn't have much in the way of assistance. At one point, a nurse came in to show us how to complete the 5Ss, but I think it may have been at the request of either a nurse on our floor or another patient because he was really giving his lungs a workout.

Saturday, I was ready to go home and so was Aaron. There was so much to do though that the process took way longer than we wanted it to. I had to have my whooping cough vaccine, there were pictures we still needed to take, Kiddo had to be checked over, so did I, and there were a lot of papers to sign. Plus, I had to go pick up my breast pump, since my insurance covered a new one. Kiddo didn't want to take pictures very badly either, until we put him on his tummy in the basket (picture to follow soon), then it was like he conked out. I can see why parents try to put their babies on their tummies to sleep, although it's a GIANT no-no (SIDS hazard). Thankfully, before we left, we had a very sweet post-partum nurse come in to talk with us and watch him latch for breast feeding and teach us about his Vitamin K supplements. She was the biggest angel ever.

When we got home, it got very real. There's a kid in our house who is 100% dependent on us! Crap! By Sunday morning, I had already called the pediatrician when I noticed he wasn't peeing. It felt like my first parental failure when I was told to nurse him as long as I could on each side and then give him 1-2 ounces of formula. No! I don't want to give him formula; I want him to be a perfect breastfed baby! The formula did the trick, but I still felt awful about giving it to him. What if he can't breastfeed now and only takes a bottle? Not to mention that there is no WAY to calculate how much breast milk he's getting when he nurses, and that early on, it's still colostrum, so it's very little anyway! Oh man, my emotions were on overdrive.

That Monday, we had a check-up to see what was going on with Kiddo. He'd lost another 2 ounces, but that was normal and so there was no cause for alarm. We just had his two-week check yesterday and he's back above birth weight, gained a whole pound since that check-up and is now 19.5 inches. I think he's healthy!

The hardest adjustment, aside from mega-sleep deprivation, has been Aaron going back to work. It gets a little lonely during the day and it's often hard to rest when Kiddo does because he's a noisy sleeper and each noise sends me into a spiral of "what's wrong?!?!?!" It's hard at night when Aaron is home because I know that he's worked hard all day and wants to unwind and I want him to sleep well so that he doesn't injure himself at work. Nights can get just as long as days. Kiddo has been good for the most part though, going about 2.5-3hours between feedings. Last night, I was going to try to push him a bit further, but I think the trip to the doctor threw off his schedule and I was up every half hour or so from 1:15-3:15am trying to nurse and get him to nod off to sleep. He just didn't seem tired and didn't want to nurse for very long. The whole time I was worried about Aaron not being able to sleep too, which didn't help.

Aaron and I have worked out a bit of a system though, so that he and Kiddo can bond and Mommy gets a little break/chance to go to bed early and get a running start on the night. One of the last feedings before 10pm or so, I nurse him for a few minutes and then Aaron gives him a bottle of expressed milk. I was worried about nipple confusion at first, but Kiddo is handling it like a pro. I think it also gives us a chance to perhaps get a bit more sleep at the start of the night, since we know he's had a "good meal."

Aaron really is an amazing dad. When I see him and Killian together, it melts my heart. I can't wait to see all of the amazing things they do together as Killian grows up. Sometimes, I just hug Aaron and tell him how important it is to me that he's here, because I know I couldn't do this without him.

We've had a few other friends come over recently as well. Whitney and Meagen came last Friday to see Kiddo. Aaron and I had taken Kiddo on the day of his first check-up to see both of the staffs at our respective workplaces. Kiddo touches a lot of people and they form an instant bond with him. He's really hard NOT to love, even when he's screaming and I want to sleep for 4 uninterrupted hours (not likely to happen I fear). Stephanie and Kevin also came over last weekend and hung out with us for several hours, which brought some normalcy back into our lives.

Well, the Kidlet (aka. Stinker when he won't nurse well for me) will be up shortly I'm sure, begging a meal and diaper change. Oh, we are in cloth diapers now. They are shockingly easy! I can't decide if I like the Flips or the prefolds better, though I worry about how long the prefolds will fit him. I was told they'd last a long time, but the sides seem to just barely meet, so I'm not sure what I need to change there. I'll leave you all with a few photos of Kidlet!