It's been an exciting few days. Came home from the hospital on Thursday, had a relatively sleepless night feeding kiddo. Because her weight was very close to the 10% of birth weight, we had to go in for a pediatrician appt yesterday. She went from weighing 5 lbs 9.8 oz on Thurs to 5 lbs 13 oz on Friday. They want to see us again next week just to ensure that Mia's weight is trending in the right direction.
So, Thursday night Amelia had "cluster feedings" nearly every hour so I got near to zero sleep. Ken figured out that when she got way too fussy we could "prime the pump" by giving her a little formula or pumped milk via syringe to calm her down enough to eat. We were so proud on Friday when they told us how much she had gained. I was doing everything right, very little to no formula, mostly breastmilk and mostly from me. We even had to feed her at the drs office (which took an hour). We got her home, however, and things went downhill.
Right around dinnertime was her feeding time, she got so angry and screaming that Kieran went upstairs to his room without finishing his dinner because he couldn't take the noise. It took nearly 1 1/2 hours to get her to eat calmly (formula from a bottle) and I was in tears by the end. We had another episode like that last night (though I only let her get really cranked for about 15 mins because I didn't want to wake Kieran - I'm still hanging out on the first floor because of the c-sec). But this morning it's so far so good. Mostly we have to get in front of her feeding cues and to get her woken up enough to eat before she gets too hungry. She is also semi-lazy and doesn't like to work so hard to get the milk so I definitely don't want her getting used to the bottle - though we specifically have a system that still makes her work for her food.
Anyway, last night went (mostly) better and I got Ken to come down and help me twice, she's fed once this morning. We'll see how the rest of it goes. I'm operating well on little sleep. Thank goodness Ken insists that I get some shut eye or I'd probably "soldier through" and then regret it later.
For my own healing, that seems to be going well. I am being very good about using the stairs sparingly though I would dearly love to sleep in my own bed, probably won't be doing that for a few weeks. I still hurt and have ridiculous elephantine feet, but this too should pass. I am not allowed to drive for another 2 weeks (frustrating but does make me glad we live in the city), stairs are roughly the same - only once up and once down for about a week and then I can start increasing my usage. I've already broken that rule but I still take it slowly and am ensuring that I also get healing as Ken reminds me that I need to be well in order to take care of our little bundles of joy.
Kieran has been (mostly) amazing. I feel bad because we are cooped up at home - with Mia feeding every 2 hours she eats for about 15-30 mins of that which means going anywhere for a bit may be difficult until we've got this whole thing down. Way too much TV and video time are going on, I am ashamed to admit, but I am hopeful that once things get back to normal (next week after the holiday Kieran goes back to school, I'll get a better handle on getting out with an infant who needs to feed) we'll be able to do more trips. Thank goodness I have a been-there, done-that mom in Katie (my cousin's wife) who has a little boy a little younger than Kieran and a baby girl who is just about 7 months.
For all those who want photos - most are up on Facebook right now. Hopefully we'll get those moved here but it takes a bit to blog and now I have to go and wake her up for her next feeding.
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