/ The RE's Muse: Pork rind

The RE's Muse

After 4 years of infertility, 2 surgeries, 1 miscarriage, and 19 months of high risk pregnancies, hubby and I now have two little women in our lives--one a toddler, the other not far behind. Buckle your seatbelts, it's gonna be a wild ride.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Pork rind



Well, what do you know? It seems the milk factory is doing something right. Juliana weighed in at a chunky little 6 lbs., 12 oz. today at the pediatrician's office (4 oz. above where they wanted her to be)! We had noticed she was looking a little chubbier cheeked than before but since we see her every day, our parent goggles are on and we simply think that we got us one cute baby--you know, new parent bias and all. Though recently I had noticed her melon was looking a little large (that's an inside joke between A and I--after I lost 70 lbs. in 2003, I saw pictures of the 'bigger' me and complained that I never noticed I had such a large head pre-weight loss, so the joke since then has been that I had a huge melon).

We did let the pediatrician know that we're going to start supplementing the breastfeeding with formula starting this weekend. He was fine with that. A mentioned to him how Juliana will wake in the middle of the night to eat and spend almost an hour or so lollygagging at my boobs which is one reason we're going to start supplementing (that way, A can take over a nighttime feeding and let me catch some uninterrupted z's). The doc said to give her 15 minutes on one side, 5 to 10 on the other and that's it. If she doesn't eat in that time, she'll have to wait until the next session. Put her back down and let her fuss (easy for him to say though, hard for us to hear). Well, hoorah for the doctor--I'm digging his thinking and advice! So we'll see how it goes.

A small milestone happened last night. A got out the booger sucker to clean Juliana's nose--which she is so not a fan of. He was going to town rooting around in there for that elusive sticky booger that was laughing at his efforts. Oh how he tried...and oh how she cried. Screamed, turned puce, magenta, purple...and squeezed out real tears from her eyes. Only one from each side--and tiny--but oh how they hurt me to see. My poor girl. So that was the end of the evening's snot mission. But the second picture above is kind of what she looked like (note, this was taken a week or so ago, back before she lost her umbilical stub so it's not an actual image from last night's festivities).

But then, all was right in the world afterwards...especially when it came time for burrito baby (see the first picture above). Ah, if only life was so simple for grown ups. I just realized that posted together, these pictures make my sweet girl look like the infant equivalent of Jeckyll and Hyde.

7 Comments:

At 9:08 PM, Blogger JenP said...

Yeah for boobs!! I think your docs advice sounds very reasonable and I hope you guys can get it to work so well that your dear princess lets you get a ton of uninterrupted zzzz's.

She's gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. And real tears...oh it pains me just thinking about it. Those tears, they just rip your heart to pieces.

I remember the first time my nephew had real tears we all shared a few with him.

Hope you all are doing really well.

 
At 9:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi D, your girl is precious! And I agree - those tears - argh, they make me feel like my skin is being peeled of sloooowly.
About your post yesterda: I am SO with you. We started supplementing with formula at the hospital. P wasn't lactching on and since she had quite a bit of a jaundice problem she needed to be hydrated. I had to feed her every two hours and had only 20 mins to do so before she needed to go back under the lamps, so it was formula and my miserable drops of pumped milk from the beginning. And it's been great, because she has no problem at all swtiching from one to the other, as she's done it since birth. I am planning to give up on pumping altogether soon, with tremendous guilt but hey, the baby is 14 lbs at 10 weeks so...
About the sleep deprivation and sleep methods: at this point, do whatever it is that works. Sleeping with you? Go for it. In the care seat? Go for it. None of this will harm her at this point, and it will do wonders for your sanity. I remember one night D and I felt horrendously guilty for having her left all night sleeping in her bouncy chair until we realized...all night! SHe had slept all night! The transition to her crib was not a big deal at all, but for the first few weeks wherever she fell asleep, that was where she was staying, even if it meant one of us had to find another place to sleep.
Sorry to highjack your blog like this, I probably should have emailed : (
Hang in there, you're doing great and things get better and better. Hang in there, no second-guessing yourself, instincts are there for a reason and yours are doing just fine : )

 
At 3:16 PM, Blogger Toffee said...

She is totally cute and adorable!

I am still pumping my milk although my little one keeps trying to suck thru my bra and t-shirt...it just hurts too much. I keep threatening to supplement with formula, but I am producing vast quantities of milk.

 
At 11:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Props to the milk factory!! Dee, Juliana is just WAY TOO CUTE - no parent goggles- you've got one damn pretty baby there! And, don't you love making the baby burrito? I just can't stop giggling when we wrap up Simon all snuggly and tight - it's the cutest thing.

We've yet to see a tear yet but I'm sure I'll sob right along with him when it happens.

Let us know how the new nightly feeding routine goes! (here's hoping you get some well-deserved shut-eye).

(hugs!)

 
At 11:08 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, Dee, I can't believe how much I've missed. I've been sooooooooo far out of the loop between all the NICU stuff and P finally coming home -- I didn't even know you'd had precious little Juliana! (Love, love, love the name, btw). Congratulations, and yay for those boobs, too!!

Heather

 
At 2:59 AM, Blogger Jenn said...

Careful with supplementing formula if you want to breastfeed long term--it can reduce your milk supply. Why not just nurse her in bed then put her back in her cosleeper? That is what I did with all 4 of my kids...well okay, they didn't always make it back into the cosleeper. ;-)

If you really do need a break once in a while, you can always pump milk...

 
At 3:04 AM, Blogger Jenn said...

Oh...and another thought...

Pediatricians are notorious for not knowing much about breastfeeding and giving advice that is contrary to successful breastfeeding. STANDARD breastfeeding advice is to let the baby nurse as long as desired on the first side and then again as long as desired on the second side. This is to ensure that she gets the high calorie hind milk. She was a premie, right (I haven't read all of your posts yet, so I don't know how early she was)? You need to consider her "adjusted age." She is going to take a while at each nursing session.

Further, your pediatrician is reccommending "Cry it Out" for a NEWBORN! Would you like to be left to fuss and cry if you really didn't know what was going on? Most real experts in infant sleep (Weisenbluth, Ferber) do not reccommend starting any kind of "sleep training" prior to 4-6 months of age. There is growing research that being left to cry causes babies to be under a lot of stress, which can cause changes in their brain.

Trust me, this newborn time doesn't last long. Soon you will be missing your sleep because you are staying up way too late reading blogs rather than waking up to nurse. ;-)

 

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