I won't go into details about the labor here (gross and personal and whatnot), but I think I will write them down elsewhere, before I really forget what it was like.
The last week has been a dream and a struggle. Dave and I are awed by the little life we created and have brought home to be part of our family. We are also discovering how completely in the dark we are about raising a newborn.
The first drama happened when we took him to the pediatrician, only to discover that he was underweight, and jaundiced. They were ready to send him back to the hospital. Dave and I were stunned. What were we doing wrong? Well, Stef wasn't taking to breastfeeding as naturally as one might have hoped, and it took about four days for my milk to come in. For these reasons, he was undernourished.
The three of us were hustled over to the lactation department at Sutter. There, we discovered what we needed to make our son healthy again. Thus began the regimen of pumping my breast-milk every two hours and dumping the product into our baby via a bottle. We dedicated ourselves to this task completely. The results were gradual, but good. 48 hours later (and who knows how many oz of breast-milk squeezed from me), Steph had put on 5 oz, and his jaundice reading was down 2 whole points. YES.
We're not done yet. The goal is to get him to his birth weight and then adjust as needed. Ideally, I'd like to breast-feed exclusively, but there may be some nipple-confusion since we've been dedicated ourselves to simply getting the milk INSIDE him, not on HOW we get it inside him. That comes next. I do hope the lactation center can help me with that one.
Anyway, worrying over my son has turned me into a basket case. I'm weepy, anxious, and now, obsessively hooked up to a breast-pump.
Things will get better, I'm sure.
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