My Growing Boy

After my last post, I took Josiah in to the pediatrician's office for his 2-week wellness check-up, and that boy is growing everyday! So far:

• At birth, Josiah was 7 lbs, 13 oz and 19" long.
• A full day later, he was 7 lbs, 6 oz.
• When we left the hospital the next day, he was back up to 7 lbs, 7 oz, which was great for him to already be gaining weight before we left.
• We took him in to see the pediatrician at 5 days old and he was already 8 lbs, 1 oz! They said they didn't expect a newborn to surpass their birth weight until their 2 week visit.
• By Josiah's 2 week visit, I was shocked to discover he was now 9 lbs!!! They also measured him out at 22 1/2 in. long, which is a 3 1/2 inch gain since birth! He measured in the 42nd percentile for his head, 51st percentile for his weight, and 91st percentile for his height!
• Two days later, I had to go back in to have Josiah's repeat PKU done (where they draw blood from his heel to detect a deficiency) and they asked me if I wanted an impromptu weigh-in, so we weighed Josiah with his diaper and clothes on and he was 9 lbs, 4 oz! I know that it wasn't the most accurate weigh-in, but they said they typically expect a baby to gain 1/2 an ounce a day, and Josiah gained 4 times that much!

I always thought I'd have a chunky baby, but now I think Josiah is going to get so tall so fast that his weight will never have a chance! He definitely takes after his daddy!!!

While Josiah is getting bigger and bigger, his mommy is getting smaller for the first time in her life!

During my pregnancy, I gained 8 inches in my waistline and a total of 10 pounds (I'm not sure how the 8" and 10 lbs level out, but that's what the numbers were...). Since having Josiah, I not only lost the 8" and 10 lbs, I lost an additional inch and another 14 lbs!!! I don't want to go into all of the details, but my weight has always been a personal struggle. I've tried many different methods to take the weight off, and my body just doesn't adjust. It took a long time for me to accept who I am and to trust God with it. My stomach is still flabby and covered in stretch marks, but I'm under 200 lbs for the first time in 6 years. And I'm not only happy with what I see in the mirror for the first time in forever, but I feel optimistic about getting healthy and reaching an optimal weight for the first time too. So, what's behind the numbers is actually quite significant for me.

In just a general baby update, things have been more difficult with Josiah lately. He's much more awake, much more often than he has previously been. This means that he's more difficult to soothe, though, and he eats more and we're awake more trying to take care of him. Furthermore, he's always been a spitter-upper and, at times, spits up a significant portion of his meal. Then he's fussy because his stomach is upset and he's hungry because he's no longer got his food, but he doesn't eat well with the upset stomach and will spit it all up again if we feed him too soon. In addition to this, he also gets really gassy, but has trouble passing it, so he just screams. In general, he's a great baby, but these things can be frustrating to deal with as a parent, and we're constantly working to learn how to deal with them. We're working on sitting him up more to feed him and burping him more often. We also got some gas medicine which will hopefully help. But everyday is different. Monday, he was tired, hungry, and had an upset stomach all at once. Feeding him sometimes helps to calm him and makes it easier to pass gas, but this time, he would just spit it up and then scream, now hungry and still unable to pass gas. After dealing with this all day, I spent all night up with him too. I woke Jesse up at 3 am (normally I let him sleep on weekdays because he works so early in the morning) crying and asked him to help me because I hadn't even been to sleep at all yet. He ended up taking over, although Josiah's frequent cries kept me awake for another hour. Jesse ended up staying awake until he left at 6 am for work and then he handed Josiah off to me. Josiah only slept another hour and woke me up again at 7, leaving me with a total of 3 hours of sleep. I called my mom who came and saved me. She came over at about 9 and I climbed back in bed at 10. I was able to sleep until 1 in the afternoon giving me 6 hours by then. The off and on sleeping is what really gets me more than anything. Six consecutive hours is totally different than a few hours here and a few hours there. The pediatrician says Josiah should be sleeping through the night by a month or 2 old. Last night he slept a solid 4 1/2 hours, which was fantastic. I hope that it's a sign of things to come, but every day is so different. Plus, once he did wake up, between feeding him, pumping, and getting him back to sleep, I was up for another 2 hours. I do take advantage of sleeping as much as I can when Josiah is asleep. I guess I struggle the most with feeling like by the time I have enough sleep to function, my day is almost over. I know it's all temporary, though. Sleep will come again some day... :-)

Meanwhile, breastfeeding is still really difficult. Because I went back to work one day last week, I had been pumping exclusively and storing extra milk for him to use while I was gone. Through that day and in the business of the following weekend, that milk has all been used up. I also have struggled to pump as frequently because it seems that when it's time to pump again, I'm just sitting down to eat or need to soothe or feed Josiah right then. So, it gets put off for another half hour to an hour. Probably due to the fact that Josiah IS eating more plus the fact that I haven't been pumping as often, I have seen a slight decrease in my milk supply. Now I feel like I'm constantly trying to stay ahead of his hunger to produce milk. If I don't have a full bottle (or if it's not enough), I will feed him directly from the breast, but he tends to spit up more often because he's laying down to eat that way. And, I prefer to have at least one bottle so that other people can help me feed him, especially on the weekends when Jesse gets up with him during the night. Struggling to stay ahead of his hunger and produce enough milk really stresses me out. I hate feeling like I have to ration what I feed him or try to distract him just long enough to pump one more time so that he can have a full bottle. Don't get me wrong. I will never deny my baby food and he's not lacking in food right now. But I do worry about it. To compensate for this, I've tried to pump at more regular intervals to convince my body that I need that much milk. I do think it's slowly working. I also know that drinking water is supposed to help, and I've been trying to make sure I'm getting enough. If it really comes down to it, I know there are supplements I can take that are supposed to help as well.

I just feel like breastfeeding consumes my life. Between trying to bottle-feed and/or breastfeed and pump all while also trying to comfort Josiah when he's crying and trying to get him to sleep when he needs to, I feel like I don't have time to just enjoy being with him. It's all too mechanical right now. I just think that if I could mix up some formula and feed him when he's hungry and then I could enjoy just holding him when he's not eating instead of timing the next time I need to pump or if there's enough milk in the bottle to feed him the next time too. But I know how beneficial breastmilk is, and how expensive formula is, and I feel like it's too early to give up on breastfeeding when I'm still able to do it. I seriously hate it, though. On top of just the emotional struggles I've just mentioned, I've had a lot of physical struggles with it. Three times in the past 3 weeks, I've experienced engorgement which causes me to have a sudden onset of chills. It'll be 80+ degrees in the house and I'm under multiple blankets shivering, unable to get warm. The first time this happened was the night that I had that really bad day (previously blogged about). I didn't know what was happening, though. I just was freezing. The second time it happened, I not only was chilled but became REALLY tired. I couldn't keep my eyes open and ended up falling asleep for several hours. Fortunately, this was late in the evening and I had Jesse there to help me. However, when I woke up, he told me I looked really pale and sick. We took my temperature and it was 102.76 degrees. And I felt so weak and shaky. Both nights I had really sore breasts too, but didn't realize it was related at the time. It was that night that I finally looked everything up online and found that I had the symptoms of mastitis, usually caused by an infection in the breasts, but the only difference was that I felt better both nights after several hours had passed without having to take any antibiotics or anything. The most recent time, I was at my cousin's house and went into the other room to pump. I could already tell that my breasts were engorged and hard and I felt the chills coming on. After spending the next hour on their couch covered in blankets, shivering, we went home where I climbed into the hottest bath I could- not only to warm up but because the hot water helps to break up the milk. I covered myself in towels while I lay in the bathtub and kept pouring hot water over my breasts. I did this for about 2 hours. By the time I got out, the chills were gone, but I was still really shaky and weak. I'm trying to pump more regularly to prevent this from happening again too.

I know a lot of this sounds negative, and I don't mean it to be. I am so happy to be a mom. I waited a long time for this and love my little boy. It's just that being a mom to a newborn baby is still a difficult thing. Crying (for both of us), spitting up, gassiness, sleepiness, breastfeeding, engorgement, and frustration are all parts of it. I don't want to wish away the moments I have now, but I will be glad to be out of the "survival" stage and enjoying just being with my baby and watching him grow. For now, though, I have to go pump again... seriously!

P.S. Recent pictures to come soon.