F is for Fansler: William's First Couple of Days

The two days in the hospital went seamlessly. My nurses were wonderful and so helpful with everything, they had some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches and you could order as much food as you want, and William was perfect. He ate every couple of hours and hardly cried otherwise. He had his first pees and poops and just seemed overall very healthy. He got circumcized, which he was not very fond of, but who would be? Then we came home...

The car ride home was not bad - he slept the entire time. We let Daisy come out and greet us and him outside before taking him inside. Daisy seemed intrigued but was gentle. Once we brought him in, he decided he wanted to FREAK out (probably because he was hungry). This made Daisy freak out and pounce on Duke. So, we have a baby crying, a dog going crazy, a cat hissing, and soon a mommy in tears. Reality sank in. No more safety nets of round the clock nurses. It was just us. I fed Will and then we changed his diaper, and it was finally peaceful for a while. Thank gosh my mom was there to cook, and she decided she could stay the night just so we had help if we needed it. I was filled with all sorts of emotions - I was excited to be home, I was happy that our baby was healthy, and I was terrified that I wasn't going to do something right. That night Will woke up every couple of hours to feed and I was still trying to get the hang of breastfeeding. After cringing a few times and changing his positions if it felt wrong, I started to feel more confident in it. Poor Michael just had to watch me in pain. He, by the way, stepped up and has become the Swaddle Master. He would wake me up to hand me Will and then when I was done feeding, he would swaddle him and put him back down to bed. We managed to get about 6 hours of sleep that night and felt revived the next day.

We didn't rest much on Sunday. Will was starting to look a little jaundiced and for the first time, we had no parents to help us out at the house. We took him outside to get a little sunlight to hopefully help with the yellow color his eyes were beginning to turn. He hadn't had many bowel movements or wet diapers since his circumcision, so that was beginning to worry us. A couple of friends came to see Will and we cooked dinner. We also decided that it would be a perfect night to give Will his first sponge bath... that did not go well. He does not like being naked or cold. Sunday night was awful. He woke up every hour and a half wanting to feed. As soon as I finished one feeding and put him down, he was ready to feed again 15 minutes later. I thought my boobs were going to fall off. Not only was I exhausted from not resting all day, but now I had to find the patience and perseverance to feed pretty much all night. Michael was also not getting sleep and started to get a little cranky - especially since he couldn't really do much in the way of help feed. Once it got to be 5:30 and he was going crazy, Michael suggested that I try and pump some milk out to help get it going. This did not work. I was broken, tired, frustrated, and felt like a failure. "Maybe we should fix him some formula.." was his suggestion. I was torn. I wanted to be able to feed my son, and know that I was doing the best thing I could for him. But, at 5:30, the best thing I could do for him was make sure he was full, and apparently my breastfeeding was not cutting it. We fed him 1oz of formula and he slept for the next 3 hours. It was miraculous. We woke up, I fed him (thank goodness he still took the boob after a bottle), and we got him ready for his first doctors appt. Labor Day morning. Shockingly, an hour and a half after I fed him, he was starving again so I had to feed him at the office. The doc weighed him and saw that he had lost an entire pound, which is more than 10% of his initial weight. This apparently is a red flag. She said that his jaundice is probably attributed to the fact that he wasn't eating enough or having enough bowel movements. Soooo.. she told us to feed him like normal on the breast, but afterwards give him a little formula. I guess our intuition was right at 5:30. I didn't feel so terrible about giving him a bottle now, since obviously my milk was not coming in as fast as he needed it to. He is still taking to the boob, so that is a huge releif, but now, he actually rests from being full after eating. We have to go back to the doctor tomorrow morning for a weight check, so I hope things look better. Michael's mom is staying with us for the week, and Michael goes back to work on Wednesday. We're taking it one day at a time, but so far, it is absolutely wonderful, no matter how hard it is. I wouldn't change it for the world.

Here are a couple of pictures from Will's first days in this world: