Hooray!

Charlie had another weight check yesterday and was up by more than a pound from last week. His father is taking to calling him "Daddy's Little Porker."

Charlie promptly starting eating every 2 hours with gusto, around the clock, when he would have been at 39 weeks gestation which supports the doctor's suspicion that his slow gain was a function of him being so young.

Charlie very much seems to be a child that develops various skills abruptly and a bit ahead of the curve if his birth and eating are anything to go by. He is now furiously working on making his head stay up and had his first tummy time yesterday. He seems to be closing in on a smile although I'm more looking forward to eye contact.

Correction

In my sleep addled state I mistakenly wrote that the dopctor was terribly concerned about Charlie's weight. I meant to say that she WASN'T too terribly concerned.

Sorry!

It gets better, right?

So, we went to the doctor again on Thursday for another weight check and Charlie was down another 3 ounces. The doctor is terribly concerned. He looks very healthy. His reflexes are good. His jaundice is quickly disapearing. He poops and pees and poops some more. She thinks that it may jsut have to do with him deciding to come so early. While he was a full term baby he is a very young full term baby.

Starting yesterday he decided to start eating every 2 hours. Dear God! I may never eat or sleep again. I am completely thrilled that this probably means he's getting with the program and will hopefully have gained some nice weight by his next weight check next week but I am really going through the ringer. The 2 hour thing continued all night and has gone into today. In addition, not only does he want to eat every 2 hours but one feeding session takes about 45 minutes. This means I get 1 hour of sleep at a time. I am so hopeful that this means he is growing and I'm commited to breastfeeding but I have to say that I could really get behind a resurgence in wet nurses. In addition to all this eating, he's also starting to have longer alert periods that I'm trying to really be responsive to in order to help him start to get the night/day concept. At this point I'm perpetually hungry but begining to feel alightly queasy at the thought of yet another granola bar (the one handed meal of choice around here), my girl parts all hurt from over use or contracting or whatever else, my neck aches from trying to sleep sitting up and nursing, and my head hurts from lack of sleep. It's a good thing he's so cute, although even that fades in allure by about 1 am.

Four Hours

Life with Charlie is going reasonably well. My sister-in-law left today and we survived the day alone while my husband was at work.

Two nights ago we had a night that made you question if you could actually do this but then last night I got a blessed 4 hours between feedings. I hadn't realized what a difference that hour could make. I slept long enough to have dreams. I didn't cry when it was time to wake up for another feeding. The benefits of breast feeding are many but it certainly isn't for wimps. Charlie tends to eat for about 45 minutes and was eating about every 3 hours so a full REM cycle was a mythical beast.

My weight is coming down. I had had this concept that since I had staying within the 25 pound range that the weight would all be gone by the time I left the hospital but I was sorely disappointed. I'm within about 7 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm still in maternity and yoga pants though. (sidebar: why do my maternity pants fit so much better now? wouldn't they make them to fit the pregnant belly?) My mid-section is still too tender to handle much in the way of waistbands. I have high hopes that I will be back in my pre-pregnancy clothing by my 6 week check-up but I'll just have to see what happens. My mind is having trouble wrapping itself around the concept that I still need to be eating a lot to support my breastfeeding at the same time as I'm losing weight.

The doctor is concerned about respiratory illness and has asked that we keep Charlie home for the 1st month. This is making me a little stir crazy since that means I can leave the house for no more than 1.5 hours if I can manage to leave within a few minutes of the completion of a nursing session.. I hadn't really realized how tethered to the house I would be until my husband and his sister went out to get some dinner and do some errands and I realized that I had to stay home. I haven't had much difficulty with PPD but that was a low point. Especially since Charlie was born so much earlier than I had expected, there are lots of little errands that didn't get done. I have had plenty of help and people are more than willing to run errands for me but there are some things I really want to do myself. The dependence on others for the errands and the amount of help I needed around the house while in the early stages of recovering from the c-section has been a bit of a trial for me. But, my recovery is going well and I'm able to most things around the house at this point. I am eagerly counting down to Charlie's 1 month birthday.

Charlie!

My water broke at 8:30 (ish) pm on Thursday, September 7. I was in the middle of my mammoth cleaning spree and had just finished digging around under the sink for some cleaning supplies when there was a "gush." We called the doctor and were on our way to the hospital by 9:30. Charles Allen M... (Charlie) was born via a c-section (originally scheduled for the 20th) at 11:46. He weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. I had just started my 37th week that day so he was full term and was (and is) quite healthy. My incision is healing nicely and I am becoming good friends with Tylenol with codeine. We came home on Sunday evening and we are beginning to settle in. We are both getting better at breastfeeding and my milk seems to be coming in. There have been mood swings but no signs of hard core PPD as of yet.

My mother and mother-in-law both arrived Friday morning to meet the baby and get the house prepared for our arrival home. My mother (with a small amount of help from my mother-in-law) managed to finish up the 2 weeks worth of cleaning I had anticipated in about 2 days- go Mom! Luckily the changing table (the last major baby item) arrived on that Tuesday (along with the water) and my Mom washed all the baby items while we were in the hospital so we have all of the key baby bases covered. We have plenty waiting for us to "finish up" when things settle down but we can manage for now. They have both left and my sister-in-law will be here for the next week or so to help out.

I will try to post more within the next several days.

Let there be water...

We have been inspected and the well guys are coming to fill in the moat with the pipes later today. I am currently running the empty washer with enough bleach to fell an ox and then will move on to tackle the rest of the many, many items that will need to be washed before they are safe for a baby to chew on. On the plus side, we had apparently been living with a pale imitation of water pressure and the washing machine seems to be making much better time than it used to. Unfortunately, the toilets are now deafening but you can't win them all. Now to see if the dishwasher has experienced a similar epiphany...

I am also trying to decide what sort of nursing wear to buy. I think I have decided to get 2 of the Land's End overstock poplin nightshirts. I'm a little worried that I will want short sleeves but am thinking that at $7 a pop, if it comes to it, I can hack off the sleeves and hem them myself. I'm also going for 2 of the motherhood nursing tanks with built-in bras. I am also on a quest for somewhat stylish yoga pant/ zip-up hoodie outfits. In some ways, I'm finding this even more daunting than maternity shopping. At least with the maternity wear you could make rough stabs in the dark that if you were a medium, you would probably stay a medium but I have no real guideline as to how enthusiatic Bessie and Buttercup will be.

Finally, I made a leap of faith purchase yesterday. Both of my cargo pants met their demise last spring. So, when I was at our Gap Outlet (which has $9 yoga pants but only in hideous colors) I noticed they had some rather fetching cargo pants for quite good price and bought a pair in what is the high end of my pre-pregnancy size range. We will see how foolish that was in a few weeks...

The End is Nigh

I have definitely turned a corner in this pregnancy. It has become more daunting to think of being pregnant for more than a few more weeks than it is to think of all that is involved with having a person you are responsible for. I am ready to be woken in the middle of the night by something that will be cute at times and, in all probability, love me back until the age of 12 when I will become The Most embarrassing Person On Earth (I'm working on my collection of show tunes to hum while walking about with the poor child- if you're going to go down, it might as well be in flames). After all, I'm not sleeping for more than a few hours at a time anyway. I am ready to have more than 2 sleep position choices. I am SO ready to wear something other than these 2 damn pairs of capris. B. Moss' cute dresses are calling to me and don't spoil it all by pointing out the logistical nightmare which is breastfeeding in a dress- keep the dream alive!

I also seem to have started what some would call hard core nesting but I think it's really the precipice of panic with a healthy side of staying so busy I won't notice that it's actually, gasp, September. I am still happily convinced that it is August 26th. Floor boards are my current fixation. The other night I woke up to pee and simply had to go after the floor boards in the bathroom with a baby wipe (no, we still don't have water). As soon as we get water, hopefully tomorrow, I am so going after those pesky corners in the kitchen...

The town finished installing all of it's stuff on Friday and the well guys had hoped to get us switched over but Ernesto changed the plan. The well guys couldn't finish their previous job on Thursday since we had torrential rains and flash floods- to add insult to injury, this was the first major rain we had gotten since the saga began. They offered to come in on Saturday, but since it has to be inspected before they can actually turn the water on we would have simply been staring at a big trench in the yard until Tuesday when the inspector would be able to come. So, we have our fingers crossed that tomorrow will be the magic day. Of course, today it's pouring and they're calling for rain tomorrow too...

In happy news, I have discovered the 90210 marathon on the Soap station.

A Little Something...

Yesterday I felt a little tickly something. I can't say if it was fingers or toes but they were little and there were 5 (I would assume) and they tickled. I hadn't known that they could be cute even before you could see them.