I loved sitting and staring at my belly as Nate was inside, kicking around and making it rumble. I love staring at him outside of the womb even more. I can't get enough of his adorable face and the funny faces that he makes with it: the furrowed brow, the "trying to open my eyes", the peaceful rest... I'm not sure when babies can actually smile as opposed to making the "gas smile", but I think I can tell the difference and I think I've seen a smile or two. Oh, and the poses that he gets himself into: the arms under the chin, the arms overhead, the debonaire one-arm-under-the-chin... I just can't get enough! I've caught Dan staring at him, as well.
I have to confess that Dan and I often sit and laugh at him, also. Actually, we laugh at the noises that come out of him. It started with the farting. I'll tell ya, this kid can fart! But he also makes tons of cute noises, too. Last night he was laying in his pack n play fully asleep and he was making this non-stop gurgling noise in his throat. It was 2 am after a feeding and I just couldn't help but bust out laughing. He sometimes makes a high pitched cooing noise that is just the best.
Sunday my Dad and Rebecca came over to do our newborn photo shoot. Dan was holding Nate with one arm, Nate's back was on Dan's chest and his body facing forward. All of a sudden, Nate started peeing, hitting my Dad right on target. Rebecca tried to put a blanket to the flow so that it wouldn't get on the floor but it was our nice blanket so I asked her not to, thinking that he would pee for a second and be done. Well apparently he had been holding it for a while because he peed so long that there was a substantial puddle on the floor. I just stood there, cracking up so hard that my eyes were watering. This happened about 30 minutes after he pooped on me, so I didn't feel badly for anybody in the line of fire.
Nate has been to the pediatrician twice. He was five days old at his first appointment, weighing 8 lbs 8 oz. He was well within the healthy weight loss zone; he could have gone all the way down to 8 lbs. The doctor sent us to Hoag to get his jaundice checked and because the level had risen since we left the hospital and was fairly close to the zone in which they would want to treat it, we had to go back the next day to check it again. The second time the level had gone down so the doctor said to just keep an eye on his coloring.
At his two week pediatrician appointment (technically he was 12 days old) he weighed 9 lbs and so was back past his birth weight, which is the goal for this appointment. Because he met this goal, we are okay to let him sleep 4-6 hours between feedings at night but need to continue feeding him every 2-3 hours during the day. The doctor was impressed with his alertness and responsiveness for his age; she said it was like he was having a conversation with her. My Mom had just said the same thing about an hour earlier. She went to the appointment with me since technically I still wasn't supposed to drive for another couple days and the appointment was right in the middle of the day, when Dan was at work. The doctor was also very happy with his coloring and confident that the jaundice was either gone or close to it. He will be two months at his next appointment and will be getting several immunizations, which I don't look forward to.
We have been having trouble getting Nate to eat enough off of the breast and have been supplementing with pumped breastmilk. If anybody would have told me that breastfeeding would be the most difficult thing I'd deal with as a new Mom, I would have thought they were crazy, but it is by far the most difficult part. And I don't think we have it all that bad compared to stories that I've read and heard from friends. It is time consuming and exhausting. We are seeing a lactation consultant from Hoag for a second time tomorrow and I'm really just hoping for some encouragement and to get an idea of when this might get a little easier. Right now I can't imagine leaving the house with him for more than just a short walk because his feeding schedule is pretty unpredictable. Sometimes he goes 2 hours between feedings and others it's 4 hours. Heck one night he went 6 hours and we actually had to wake him up. Yesterday he didn't need a bottle for half of his feedings, which was a definite improvement from needing a bottle after every feeding.
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