Rough Start

The first week of John's life was a really rough one. He had a 2 day weight and color check and it didn't go well at all. First off, the doctor had John's birth weight listed as 7 lbs 14 oz and when he was weighed at his appointment, he was only 6 lbs 6 oz; meaning he had lost about 20% of his weight and he was really dehydrated. When the doctor told me this, I burst into tears. I felt like I was killing my child. We had had some trouble getting breast feeding down, but I didn't realize it was this bad. I felt like the worst person on the face of the planet.

They sent us to the lab to get some blood tests done on John, and while we waited, I choked back tears of self-loathing. We waited and waited for the test results. And waited. And waited. After what seemed like eternity (honestly, it had been about 2 hours) I poked my head out of the exam room and asked how much longer it was going to take. The nurse told me that the lab had had a miscommunication and had lost John's lab results, so we had to get his blood drawn again and waited another hour for the results. By the end of the appointment, we had been at the pediatrician for 6 hours.

The doctor told us to supplement John with formula to try to get his weight up and sodium levels down. The hospital did give us a gift card to Applebee's to apologize for the inconvenience, but all I really cared about was getting John to a healthier weight. We were vigilant for the next 24 hours -- feeding John every 2 hours with breast milk and formula. And the next morning we went back to the pediatrician.

Robby asked what the hospital had as John's birth weight and told them to my surprise that they had it wrong. His real birthweight had been 7 lbs 4 oz, but somewhere along the line, someone had added a 1. So really John had only lost about 12% of his weight (still too much, but not so horrible) and that day, he weighted in at 6 lbs 11 oz and the doctor was much happier with his levels. I was breathing a sigh of relief, but I still felt like a child abuser. Robby had to console me so many times and remind me that I wasn't doing anything wrong. Sometime new moms have struggles with breast feeding. John's still not gaining weight at rapidly as we'd hope, but he is eating so much better  and he is chunking up. I think he just has his daddy's super-fast metabolism. I just hope he continues to gain weight and chunk up.

Other than that, he's such an angel. He loves to cuddle and we've even gotten him to the point where he'll sleep in his crib at night. I feed him every couple hours, but as soon as he's had his fill, he'll fall asleep and go down in his crib without a peep.

I just love this little guy so much. I feel so blessed to be his mom. I'm so glad he decided to come to us and I thank my Heavenly Father daily for the two amazing guys in my life: my wonderful husband and my darling baby boy.