Marlee's 2nd Week
October 04, 2003 - 11:30 a.m.
2nd week
Tim had to go back to work on Thursday. It was pretty hard for him to go. We sent him some pictures while he was at work to make the day a little shorter.
Thursday I got two emails that made me cry. One from American Baby stating that my baby is One Week Old. Can�t she stay this small forever? And the other was from my �best friend� who said life was �too hectic� for her to come see Marlee right now. I feel like saying, �Um, I just had a BABY, I think whatever it is that you have going on PALES in comparison, and a true friend would be here.� Am I being selfish here?
Marlee seems to have one good night followed by one bad night. Thursday night was awful. She slept all day, despite repeated attempts by Mom and I to wake her. That meant at 10pm when I was ready to go to sleep, she was wide awake. Wide wide awake until 2am. We had to get up early on Friday for her Dr.�s appointment.
Friday morning my mom made us breakfast, we got Marlee all ready for her appointment and even left on time. This is about the time when Tim�s brain took a small vacation. He couldn�t find the keys for the car, and then he ran over the diaper bag with the car. Very stressful morning. But at the Dr�s, we had her belly button checked out (it had been bleeding that morning) and she said it was about to fall off. I am supposed to call on Monday if it hasn�t. Marlee weighed in at 8lbs 7 oz! She passed her birth weight by 5oz already. What a little piglet.
Friday afternoon, my mom went back home. She�s planning on coming back on Monday � when we can hopefully get a little scrapbooking done. Marlee is still sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches. She�s starting to stay awake a lot longer though.
Saturday we went to our niece�s 1st birthday party. Of course everyone wanted to hold her so I barely even saw my own baby all day�and every time she cried someone would stick a pacifier in her mouth. I couldn�t believe how much I missed her even though she was right across the room. I wasn�t able to nurse her often and when I did it was for a 5 minute stretch, just enough to pacify her for the time being before someone else scooped her up. At one point I KNEW she was hungry, and I asked for her back so I could feed her, and the woman actually said to me, �You get her all the time, you don�t need her right now.� This brought me to tears and I went to mope in the other room�
She got to meet two of her great-grandmothers at the party and after the party we went to my grandma�s house � so she got to meet 3 greats in one day! My aunt and cousin also met her for the first time.
Sunday morning I woke up with one semi-full and one empty breast. From not nursing her at all the day before � I didn�t realize that milk supply could react so quickly�but I had spent the entire day before engorged and I didn�t pump or anything. I tried in vain to feed her all day but it was pretty evident that I wasn�t making enough�by 9pm she was screaming bloody murder and looking for something to eat. Tim fed her the first bottle while I cried and cried over my failure. She sucked it down like she�d never been fed before, then passed out happily. I read everything I could about boosting milk supply and vowed not to give up�I ended up waking her every hour to �nurse� � basically just to suckle to stimulate milk production. Within 24 hours it came back!!! Not overflowing like I was before, but enough to feed her and that was all that mattered. Now I make sure not to go too long between feedings � I usually don�t let her go longer than 2 hours during the day and 4 hours at night.
Monday my mom came back to spend one more night with us. She made us dinner again, something I could have gotten used to!!
Marlee�s cord stump fell off on Tuesday. It was absolutely disgusting. It was all green and gooey inside � I made my mom clean it out for me because I thought I was going to lose my lunch.
Wednesday was Marlee�s 2-week appointment with Dr. Latterell. Everything went really well. She weighed 8lbs. 13oz. Her head, which measured 31cm at birth, had grown to 36cm. She also grew an inch! 21�. She is in the 90% for all 3 measurements. Dr. Latterell said her belly button looked good, and that her thrush didn�t look too bad. She said we wouldn�t do anything about the thrush unless I got it because there is no way to �cure� it in breastfed newborns. Then the best news of all came � her Down�s Syndrome test came back NORMAL! Plus all her other newborn tests were normal too. Overall it was a great appointment and a great week!