4 Months Old!

Good thing we had another kiddo or I don't think this blog would have any posts!

Well, I've been back to work about 2 months now.  I think we have a routine.  For now at least, I'm sure it will change in another month or two.

Andrew has officially graduated to 6 month clothing.  At his 4 month check up he was 13lbs 14 ounces and 26 inches long!  He's eating about 5 ounces every 2.5-3 hours.  I haven't quite been able to keep up with him and pumping, so he gets a formula bottle about once every other day.  I'm ok with that.  When I'm home he eats about every 2 hours.  He's finally in size 2 diapers.  I should have switched him a little earlier, but I wanted to us up all of my size ones.

He's still working on his sleep.  He does about a 5-6 hour stretch, then every 2-3 hours.  I had two nights in a row where he slept 8-9 hours.  I had hoped that was a trend of good things to come, but nope, it was just a tease.

Andrew is doing great with tummy time, and likes watching us.  He can roll from his belly to his back.

Other than eating, I think Andrew's favorite thing to do is kick.  We'll put him in the vibrating chair and he'll just kick, kick, kick.  He also loves to eat his fingers!  I don't feel anything teeth yet, but the drool has certainly increased!

I'm glad Andrew is the second child, he does not like being by himself!  We'll walk out of the room and he'll start crying until someone comes back in to talk to him.  Bri's getting more talkative with him and is starting to understand the concept of "gentle" a little better.

And, I know the statistics aren't in our favor to have 2 blue eyed babies, but his eyes are still blue!

3 Months Old!

And 2 weeks late writing the post!  The photos are from when he's actually 3 months old at least.

At 3 months, Andrew weighed 12 pounds, 8 ounces and was 24.25 inches long.  He's a long skinny boy!  His weight is tracking right along the 25%.  It's so empowering knowing it's my body and my milk helping him grow.  I'm still limiting my dairy, but it seems like he can tolerate cheeses and baked dairy.  Last weekend I ate icecream, and man, back to horrible, painful crying! 

In terms of diapers, we're still squeezing into size 1.  He really should probably be in size 2, but we're using our supply up.  And heck, they're not leaking :)  He's wearing size 3 month clothing (well he was, but now at 3.5 months has graduated to size 6 months).

I love baby smiles.  He's started to have the social smile and it's just so heart warming.

In terms of favorite things, I really think it's eating.  This boy loves to eat.  Fortunately for me, but not really, he didn't really do any reverse cycling when I went back to work.  He's sleeping about 6-8 hours at night and wakes once to eat.  That would be nice if I was able to pump enough milk at work to compensate for what he eats at home.  So since he's not tolerating dairy and he turned his nose up when we tried hypoallergenic formula once, I'm either staying up late or waking up in the middle of the night to add in a pumping session.  So far I've been able to keep up.  I'm not going to lie though, it's exhausting.

Bri has started to become jealous.  Only I can brush her teeth, only I can get her out of the car, only I can put her to bed.  She's overall very good with the baby.  She likes to use his stomach as a drum though...  I'm really curious to find out how she reacts once he starts moving and trying to play with her toys.

2 Months Old!

We made it to two months without a fever!  The pediatrician in me is quite happy with that!  Not that I want him to have a fever, but now if he has a fever he won't automatically need blood work.

Little man is gaining weight like a champ!  At two months he was 11 pounds and 23 inches.  This puts his weight at about the 20-25%.  This is huge for me.  When Bri was 2 months old her weight was about 3%.  It is such an empowering feeling knowing my breast milk has helped him grow and continue gaining weight.  He's eating about 7-9 times a day.  I'm still dairy free.  I tried a milk shake one day, and man, he was a monster the next day!  It seems he can tolerate me eating baked dairy, so I do have an occasional cookie or piece of cake.  I'm surprised by how little I miss dairy.  It's been better that I can't eat ice cream, because I'm not very good with moderation when I start a pint of Chubby Hubby.  I learned I really enjoy almond milk and I've been able to bake with almond milk.

In terms of sleep, he wakes about once a night.  I hope it stays that way, but we'll see now that I'm back to work.

He has way outgrown his newborn clothes and is starting to be too long for the 3 month clothes!  He's officially wearing size 1 diapers.

Right now, his eyes are still blue!  And it's such a handsome blue.  Statistically since Bri has blue eyes, he shouldn't (we have a 1/8 chance of having TWO blue eyed children), but only time will tell.

In terms of things he likes, he LOVES the bath, and of course he loves to eat.  Unfortunately he hates tummy time :(

Bri has realized he's not going anywhere, but she's doing great with him!  The biggest thing I worry about right now is she uses his stomach as a drum...  Fortunately she's stopped trying to pick him up.  She herself wants to be carried more though, which I wouldn't mind if she wasn't almost 40 pounds!

One Month Old!

I swear, life goes faster with two kids around.  Little man turned one month old a couple of days ago. 

I've been going to a breastfeeding support group about once a week, so fortunately I know what his weight is.  On his one month birthday, he weighed 9 pounds 2 ounces.  (His birth weight was 8lb 8oz).  This weight is huge for me!  It took his sister about a month to regain her birth weight, and then she gained very slowly.  I wish I had known about the breastfeeding group with her because I truly think it was her latch that was affecting her milk transfer, which was affecting her weight gain.  I'm blessed to be able to breastfeed my children.

Overall, his demeanor has been decent.  He was very fussy the first week and a half, then I saw blood in his poop, so I cut out dairy.  Since cutting out dairy, his demeanor has improved.  However, it's hard to say if it was time or dairy that improved things since he only had the blood in the stool once.  Joe and I went out to lunch today, so I decided today was the day I do a dairy challenge and ate cheese.  We'll see how it goes.  Even if it goes ok, I think I'll try to stick with limiting dairy but not stress about the "hidden dairy."  Who am I kidding?  I'm craving ice cream.

His favorite thing to do is eat!  I mean, what else does a one month old do?  Eat, sleep, poop.

He's straddling sizes in clothes, I'm moving mostly to the 3 month clothing now.  He's definitely too long for the one piece newborn clothes.

For now, his eyes are still blue.  I don't think they'll stay blue just because they're a different shade than what his sister's eyes were, plus statistically we shouldn't have two blue-eyed kids.

Baby sister is adjusting very well!  The past week she acquired a cold and wanted to cuddle more and did regress to wanting to be carried more, but I think this will pass once she starts feeling better.

I want to try to start working out again.  Last week I did a 15 minute post-natal workout.  I think it's a good way to ease back in.  It is going to be even harder now to find time with the two kids though.  One day at a time.  Plus I can't wait until it gets warmer!

We had another baby!

Well, my goal is going to be at least monthly updates now that WE HAD ANOTHER BABY!  First, I'll say I was spoiled by our first baby coming 2.5 weeks early.  I ended up having C3P0 at 39 weeks 6 days, but damn, it was a long pregnancy!  I started effacing at 34 weeks and I walked around 3.5-4 cm dilated for over two weeks.  From about 36 weeks on I had intermittent contractions, which I never had with R2D2.  They were such a tease, and honestly, not the most comfortable experience.  So, when I had my first "real" contraction, it still felt like some of the contractions I had been having off and on.  The difference, these contractions stayed about every five minutes, and quickly became even more frequent.

I decided I wanted to continue to work until I delivered.  Since I went early with R2D2, after 38 weeks we stopped scheduling patients and I was opening my schedule on a daily basis for sick patients. When I went to work that Monday morning I had no clue I'd be leaving work to have a baby!  I saw my morning patients, I didn't feel any different than my new normal back pain and pelvic pressure.  While I was eating lunch around 12:45 I felt a contraction.  The contraction was strong, but it didn't quite take my breath away and no stronger than some I had the previous weeks.  After I had a second contraction about 7-8 minutes later I decided I should pay more attention to them.  By that time my first afternoon patient was waiting for me.  Well, by the end of that visit, I knew this was the real deal, but I had no clue how fast things would progress!  I called Joe, told him where our hospital bag was, asked him to pick me up, and then proceeded to see my next patient.  Yes, I saw my next patient.  I mean, I had to wait for Joe to pick me up anyway, so what if my contractions were 5 minutes apart by that time?  I warned the family so they understood my pauses during our visit.  Things snowballed after that, I think by the time I left work, the contractions were about 3.5 minutes apart.  I felt EVERY SINGLE BUMP on the way to the hospital, which was 25 minutes away.  By the time I arrived at the hospital, my contractions were about 90 seconds apart and the pain was INTENSE.  They quickly got me back to triage and unfortunately I couldn't even lay still long enough to stay on the monitors.  My pain was best managed standing up and bending over slightly.  There were several times where the pain was so intense I truly thought I was going to pass out (how I deal with pain).  I remember saying to Joe so many times, "this is so much worse than with Bri."  Well, while trying to manage the pain, wham, my water broke.  I looked down and saw it was brown.  Being a pediatrician I knew this was meconium and truly said, "Oh sh!t, meconium!"

After much troubleshooting to get me into a comfortable position (laying on my back made the contractions more intense) the doc was finally able to exam me and ends up I was fully dilated and ready to push.  No wonder I was having so much pain!  Once I heard that I looked at the resident doc and almost begged her to let me deliver.  Fortunately the nurse talked me off the edge and put reason in my head to deliver down in L&D, especially since he was meconium.  Once I knew I was ready, I just wanted the pain to be over.  They immediately whisked me down to L&D, my OB had already started prepping, they transferred me the delivery table, and I was ready to roll.  My OB quickly finished putting her gown on, I looked at her, said I was ready, and started pushing.  Joe and I can't quite remember if it was 2 or 3 pushes, but he was here!  Since he had pooped before delivery, the NICU nurse practitioner was there. They took him immediately over the the baby bed.  He started crying, so they did some mild suctioning, dried him off, and put him back on my chest to transition.

Well, unfortunately my labor story doesn't end there.  At about 10 minutes of life I realized C3P0 was still quite blue for being 10 minutes old and he was making a sing-song noise called grunting that often means the baby is having trouble breathing.  Oh, and we were still waiting for my placenta to detach.  Since I knew panic doesn't make things go any faster, I calmly looked at my nurse and asked her to grab a pulse ox for the baby.  My doctor gut was right, his oxygen level was hovering in the high 60's to low 70's.  Fortunately, the NICU came back and did their thing.  They gave him some oxygen, did more deep suctioning, ultimately he needed a couple of breaths via face mask, and had him pink before taking him to the NICU.  In the mean time, we're at over 20 minutes since delivery and my placenta wasn't budging.  So as I sat there waiting for the labor process to continue I just had to trust the NICU.  I mean, I do, that's why I delivered at a hospital with a NICU, but it was still hard. It's hard knowing how serious things COULD be and I couldn't do anything.  I couldn't go over to the bed and see my child.  I couldn't let my doctor instinct kick in and start taking medical care of him.  I couldn't do anything other than wince when my OB massaged my placenta and hope I didn't need to go to the OR.  Ultimately I received some pain medicine through my muscle (still no IV) and my OB manually retrieved my placenta.  Finally, labor was over.

So, just to put things into perspective into how quick it was, my first contraction was at the earliest 12:45pm, I delivered at 3:36pm.  I always said, I think I'd try labor without an epidural and if I couldn't handle it, I'd get one, well, this time around, I didn't have time to even consider any pain medication!

Ultimately, C3P0 went to the NICU and received 2 days of antibiotics.  He was stable breathing on his own by the time he arrived to the NICU.  He's now 3 weeks old and we're all doing well.  Soon enough I'll be doing his one month update!