Friday, May 20, 2011

Picnics and Pictures

DSC_0004The weather has been beautiful the last three days. With my breastfeeding struggles at least it’s cheerful outside! We enjoyed a picnic lunch on Wednesday in our front yard.

DSC_0018Desmond loves his baby sister! He often wants to hold her and makes sure she has everything she needs. He even gives her the hug, kiss, eskimo kiss, high-five, knuckles, and thumbs up routine. She’s going to get lots of love from him. After spending so much intensive one-on-one time with Kaylynn, Desmond looks so huge to me! He’s my big boy.

DSC_0031I can’t resist taking pictures of Kaylynn. She’s so beautiful! I love to snuggle her and kiss her cheeks. It warms my heart in ways I can’t even describe just to hold her close. She’s my lovely flower – a precious gift.

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Baffling the Lactation Consultants

DSC_0001Feeding Kaylynn has been my life this week.  I figured out I spent at least 12 hours solely focused on feeding and pumping the other day.  We’ve been trying to get her to breastfeed again like she did at first.  She’ll only feed at the breast if there’s a tube pumping it in.  Otherwise she fights me and gets very angry.  She wants to latch on and opens wide, but then once on she’ll pull away.  If she does manage to calm down, she’ll do small sucks and fall asleep.  I’ve been to two one-on-one lactation consultations and a lactation support group and so far none of the experts can figure out why she’s not nursing.  I have the supply as evidenced by my 24 oz of pumped milk per day.  Kaylynn just won’t work to get it out, but she used to and that’s why my milk came in so fast. 

At today’s one-on-one the consultant wondered if she’s getting conditioned to scream on my breast so I want to do my best to get her comfortable and calm there.  We’ll keep trying.  I only had three hours of sleep last night so today has been a bit difficult in staying calm with her fighting me.  We both end up crying.  Davin also returned to work yesterday so I’ve got to do this on my own which is very difficult with the tube feeding.  I have another lactation appointment on Tuesday with the expert in the office to see if we can figure this out.

Kaylynn had her first bottle yesterday and though I feel like it’s a cop out it also felt so good to just simply feed and enjoy her as her deep blue eyes stared at me over the bottle.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

From Hospital to Home

I have a few minutes before I need to feed Kaylynn so I’m raising my head out of the "I have a new baby and a 2-year old” abyss to record our first week.

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Kaylynn Hope Eliana Studer was born on May 9, 2011 at 8:41 pm.  She weighed 8 lbs 4.5 oz and was 20.5 inches long.  I won’t go into the full birth story, but Kaylynn and I are both doing well.  There are a few major differences between this and my first birth experience.  For one thing I started off feeling very well rested since it was a repeat cesarean.  Also Kaylynn knew just what to do for breastfeeding.  She helped me out a lot and though she got down to 7 lbs 10.8 oz, she was back up to 7 lbs 12 oz before we left the hospital. 

It was hard being away from Desmond and Kaylynn reminded me of him so much!  Desmond came to visit on Tuesday morning and didn’t quite know what to think.  He immediately came over to look at her and got a huge smile, but then she started crying and he teared up and wanted me to put her back in her bed.  We gave him some big brother gifts from Kaylynn and he played with his new battery operated Percy train the rest of the visit.  The next day he was more interested in her and wanted to hold her and give her kisses.  He’s going to be a good big brother!

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On Thursday afternoon we came home.  My parents and Aunt Marcia were staying at our place while we were in the hospital, but they returned home Thursday evening.  Friday all of Davin’s parents arrived and stayed through the weekend.  It was fun having them here, but having all the company has also created quite the whirlwind as we adjust to our new addition.  Cheryl is thankfully staying for two weeks to help me adjust to Davin’s return to work in two days.

My recovery is going just as well as it did with Desmond.  I took some pain medication at first, but the last few days I haven’t needed any.  The main downside is I have no abdominal strength and can’t pick Desmond up or get out of bed very easily for that matter.  It is getting better, though.

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And here we go again!  Kaylynn fed like a champ for the first five days bringing in my milk in just over two days (which impressed all the nurses).  Then Sunday she became really lazy with her sucking and wanted to nurse almost non-stop.  I don’t know what changed, but at our first mother/baby appointment yesterday the lactation consultant confirmed that she’s not getting enough and is a lazy feeder.  She falls asleep almost as soon as she’s on.  So here’s my new regimen: breastfeed, feed her extra breast milk with the aid of a tube, pump, and repeat every 3 hours.  Sigh!  I was so hoping we had this thing down and I didn’t need all this paraphernalia!  I can’t do the tube feeding on my own yet (if only I had three hands) and this whole process usually takes just over an hour to complete which means I can’t tend to Desmond for quite a stretch. 

Yesterday was my hardest day after breezing through the first several days.  I get frustrated with the new feeding process, but if pumping for 11 months with Desmond is any indication, we can make this thing work!  I just have to find my new rhythm.  My goal with Desmond was to get him off formula and I did.  So far we haven’t needed formula with Kaylynn so my goal with her is to get her back to proper nursing so we don’t need the tube.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Easter Weekend

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The Saturday before Easter we went to Esther Short Park downtown and joined in an Easter egg hunt.  There were tons of eggs in a sectioned off piece of lawn for the four and under crowd.  Once they said, “Go” it was over in about 15 seconds.  This was Desmond’s first hunt so he didn’t really know what to do, and all the people kind of intimidated him, but he managed to get six eggs and then enjoyed eating the candy inside.

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Easter day we had my family over for a big meal, and the rain stopped long enough for Desmond to do another egg hunt in our yard.  He was very cute to watch.

The games are fun, but what a gift to remember that Jesus conquered death for us that we may live forever with Him!