Update

Ah! An update after this weekend’s graduationcraziness.

Went back to the office on Friday, and Lena had gained 2oz in 2 days. Yay! I had pumped a little bit already, so after  Wednesday’s crash, we started feeding her pumped stuff after each feeding. And then she startedgoing 3 hours between feeding instead of 2, and she wasn’t screaming in between. Feeding stopped being an hour-long affair. And I also started feeding on only one side per feeding, making me less sore and, hopefully, getting her some better nutrition. It’s still tiring and there’s not really room for error (I’m just barely keeping up), but it does seem to work. And if  I get behind, I have the pre-mixed formula samples by “the chair,” which makes me comfortable knowing that a back-up is immediately available at 4am if she’s still hunger- screaming after giving her everything I’ve got.

Thank you so much for the support on the last post. I really, really do appreciate your stories and advice, and I’m wishing we’d figured out this weight thing earlier so that we wouldn’t have gotten so stressed out trying to calm a hungry baby, I would have gotten over the whole formila thing longer ago, and we could have enjoyed our baby sooner. She’s kinda neat when not screaming her head off. I also wish that the breastfeeding class mentioned that a) it’s a challenge, b) formula is not the end of the world, and a bottle of it doesn’t mean you’ve failed and doesn’t mean you have to totally switch, c) sometimes you just need a break to catch up on sleep, to heal,  or to let your own supply come in. The class we went to was run by the head lactation consultant at the hospital, and when I saw her post delivery, she kept trying to push formula, whichIthought was weird, given her near-total dismissal of it during the class.

The pediatriction that weve been seeing at the practice told us that she’d had to supplement when her first son was born, too, and she felt like a huge failure when that happened. But, by 6 weeks, everything worked out and they weren’t having to supplement any more.

What really helped make this work was grandmothers visiting. I could feed her, hand her off to ahappy grandma to go to sleep, and then pump to prepare for the next feeding. Lena doesn’t really nap unless she’s being held or cradled in some manner: our record for the crib is about 10 minutes at this point. Maybe 30 minutes in her swing. 5 minutes in the bassinet. And a million hours when held, wrapped up, or snuggled next to us. She’s very much a snuggler, trying to get as close as possible and burrowing into our necks when taking a light nap.

Lena’s Ben trying out her hands. She grabs my hair and TCB’s chest hair, shehas tried out sucking on all combinations of fingers. So far, favorites include the thumb and index finger at the same time, like she’s whistling, and the middle two fingers, like Dear Seester used to do. I laughed pretty hard when I saw her doing that.

My pooch is still deflating, stretch marks seem to be getting more purple and angry-looking. But! My favorite part of my belly button, the little overhang at the top, has returned! That disappeared New Years Eve 2003.

I know there are spelling errors and run-together words in this post, I’m typing this on the iPad, and it tries to guess my next words. And autocorrects, leaving out spaces.