Reflections from Week 1

Day 1: She was pretty sleepy this day. She breastfed right after the birth, and then slept for about 5 hours solid after that. She woke to feed in the evening, and then went right back to sleep. We were just trying to get the hang of this breastfeeding thing before my milk came in. She did have several pees that day though which was good! Also, her hands and feet are the wrinkliest little things I have ever seen! She looks like she was born with the limbs of an 80 year old woman. They dont look like baby hands at all. Its hilarious!



Day 2: She had a couple of dirty diapers this day, and the meconium was weird, very runny and not at all like tar like you normally see. It sure made it a lot easier to clean though so I was not about to complain! She ate well sleept a lot during the day. She cluster fed for 3 hours before bed last night (from 10pm until 1am) and then slept until 5am which was pretty good! I dont expect that every night but it was nice to get some sleep!

Day 3: This last night was a little rough and she was up for many hours in a row. I only got about 2.5 broken hours so was feeling pretty tired this day. She slept most of the day and so far does wake on her own to eat, every 2-3 hours or so. My healing is going well and my bleeding has nearly stopped completely. I am amazed! Her hands and feet have started to peel and there is loose, dry skin everywhere. Hopefully now they start looking like normal baby hands and feet once all of that wrinkly skin peels off!

 Day 4: Feeding was going extremely well and my nipple pain was actually starting to fade and the blisters started to heal. Thank goodness! She was so far showing no signs of reflux. She has not spit up even one time! I never knew it was possible to have a baby that didnt spit up. Last night she slept great and was only up every 3 hours, so I got some good sleep in between the wakes. She did have a very crusty left eye this morning and the doctor thinks it is either a clogged tear duct or possibly pink eye, we have an appointment in the morning to determine which it is.


Day 5: Eleanor and I spent all morning visiting several different doctors. She has some kind of eye infection or clogged tear duct and I have to put ointment in her eye 5 times a day for the next 5 days. Then I had to get her tongue clipped and we tried to figure out why she is suddenly super sleepy, not eating well and is having long episodes of not breathing and choking while feeding. The dr suspects that she may have some kind of issue/deformity in her mouth/soft palate (or possibly an infection of some sort) that is preventing her from breathing, sucking and swallowing at the same time. I have to do these special mouth exercises with her 5 times a day for a week. We ended up taking her to Children's Hospital on the advice of our pediatrician. We started at the emergency department, where they took blood, gave her a catheter to collect urine and gave her a spinal tap. That was the most horrible part for me. Watching them stick her a bunch of times and that long needle in her back was just awful. She was a total champ though and never really cried much at all. I know I would have been a crying fool if that were me. Heck, I was a crying fool and I wasn't the one being stuck. That night they admitted her to the hospital for 48 hours to run cultures, give her antibiotics and monitor her breathing and oxygen saturation. Michael needed to stay with Will so I was on my own a lot of the time. After the stress of this day, my bleeding picked right back up unfortunately.

Day 6: We got initial blood cultures back and they were negative thank goodness. We just had to keep waiting for the cultures from the urine and spinal fluid to come back negative as well. I started waking her to feed every 2 hours to prevent her from getting dehydrated and so far she seems a lot more awake and lively. Will stayed with his aunt and uncle for much of the day and Michael came to the hospital for a few hours to let me go home and shower, change and sleep. I hadnt slept at all the night before so taking that shower and a 4 hour nap made me feel a lot more human. Eleanor continued to do well though she was still having the breathing/choking episodes during feeds. After really observing her and reflecting on all of the episodes she had had thus far, I figured out that it was only really happening at the end of a feed, when she was drowsy and relaxed. I thought that maybe she was forgetting to swallow and when she went to breathe, the milk would choke her up. They scheduled a lactation consultant and an occupational therapist to stop by the following day and see if they could help figure out what was going on and how to prevent it. 

Day 7: The occupational therapist stopped by and watched me breastfeed Eleanor. She was able to actually witness one of her episodes and agreed with me that it didn't look like reflux and more like she was choking. She gave me some suggestions for different positioning (keeping her more upright to prevent milk from pooling in the back of her throat) and timing (pulling her off the breast when she began to look sleepy). She said that Eleanor will eventually grow out of this period and we just need to watch her closely until she does. The rest of the fluid cultures came back negative and we were officially discharged around 3pm. Michael and Will came and picked us up and we were finally able to go back home together as a family. 

Now that we are home, we are starting to fall into more of a routine. During the day she eats every 3 hours or so. She never cries which is nice (she just squeaks. The last time I heard her cry was right after she was born), and she is sleeping pretty well at night (for a newborn). She likes to start a block feed around 10pm and just keeps eating and fussing until midnight, when she then passes out until 3-4 am, and then is up again around 7am. So most nights I have been getting about 6 broken hours of sleep. The one bad thing is that its been SO hot lately and with all of my postpartum hormones, I have been a sweaty mess at night. Oh the joys of motherhood! Her color is looking better though and now that her tongue tie clip is healing, she is better able to swallow and not choke. Overall things are looking up. Now I just have to adjust to parenting two kids on my own during the day. Michael is going back to work and I will be on my own for the first time. Fingers crossed it goes well!