Since we've been home..

We've had tons of new experiences, individually and as a family. The first few days home were great but very tiring, especially at 3 am when we had a screaming baby and no clue what to do with him. We had lots of visitors and most importantly when we got home, we were finally able to introduce Jackson to his two fur brothers, Jiff and Carlin. This wen't suprisingly well. The boys were interested enough to sniff him, but that's it. They were more excited to see Justin and I. After the first few days we had our first Peditrician visit, which we were late to of course. It was a pretty routine appointment. They checked his weight and just did a little physical. As far as his weight goes. He was 7lbs, 9.4 oz when he was born, he was 7lbs 0.8 oz when we left the hospital and then at the doctor's he was 6lbs 12 oz. So he definitely lost some weight but the doctor wasn't worried. We're scheduled for a 2 week visit this friday to recheck his weight. If it's not back to his birth weight then he will talk about supplementing with us.

As far as feeding goes, I started out strictly breast feeding. When he said that his weight was down I decided to also start pumping so that we could give him at least one 2 oz bottle a day on top of the breast feeding. It just so happens that this one 2 oz bottle was our key to actually getting some sleep when we gave it to him during one of his night feeds. YAY!!!! Well, then he started getting fussy around 8pm every night and he would want to eat every hour and it still wasn't enough. For some reason I feel like between 8pm and 12 am I don't make any milk. It's really weird. So now we've decided to switch to strictly pumping and giving him bottles so we know how much he's getting and so we're sure he's getting enough. Occasionally a 3 oz bottle doesn't settle him so he'll still breastfeed a little after, but then he's content. Since we've been doing this, he's sleeping much better in between feeds and he's much happier at night. The only problem we've had is me not producing milk around 8pm at night. It's so weird but I'm hoping that the constant pumping every 3 hours will change that.

Anyhow. Since we've been home we've also taken a couple store trips (babies r us, walmart, BJ's, etc.) and while some have gone well, others have made me very anxious especially when he gets fussy. It's made me realize just why people don't venture out for a while after having a baby, ha ha. One of our other trips included having lunch with Justin's family on Justin's birthday, which is just 6 days after Jackson's. Justin's very excited because they're both Cancers and now he can pass down his grandfather's ruby ring to his son. :) Well the lunch trip went well but once it was over I was glad to be home because I was only 5 days into my recovery. And boy they do not tell you how sucky postpartum recovery is. I've taken care of patients after they've had a baby but not for very long, so I never got to see just how uncomfortable and sometimes painful it can be. Especially when you throw stitches into the mix. That has got to be one of the worst parts. Even almost two weeks later it can be uncomfortable to sit down or move around. But it gets better by the day. I've compared it to having the flu: when you're in the middle of it you feel like you've never felt worse in your life and that it's never going to end, but day by day you get better and then once your well you forget how bad it really was. The only difference is, I won't be forgetting anytime soon, ha ha. I'll be keeping this recovery in mind until I'm good and ready to do it all over again, which will be no time soon.

Another one of our outings was to my brother's friends house for a cookout. Lenny and Jess just had a little girl about 4 weeks ago and my brother was excited to get the two of them together. Of course Jackson and Isabella could have cared less. They both slept the whole time. But it was nice to get outside and my brother enjoyed holding his nephew for quite a while.

The rest of our time has been spent at home feeding and changing the baby. As far as changing goes, we quickly learned that with boys, the pee pee has to face down in the diaper, ha ha. We've had a couple of accidents warranting new outfits. I've also had quite a few incidents where Jackson has continued to poop as I'm changing him, or he'll decide to pee once I get the new diaper under his butt. Sometimes I'll go through 3 diapers before we finally reach the finish line. Justin just recently had his first round of pooping during the change and getting sprayed with pee. And here I was thinking that Jackson would christen him first. Oh well. At least he's changing diapers, and that's all I can ask. He was scared to originally because of the umbilical cord and the circumcision. But the circ has healed well and the umbilical cord fell off on Jackson's one week birthday. Now with his very own belly button, Jackson enjoys baby tub baths much more than he enjoyed those cold sponge baths. Bath time in our house is a family event. Justin gets to hold him up in the tub while mommy washes him down. Then, when we put him in the towel and he pees, daddy gets to hold him again while mommy washes him down again. ha ha.

On Saturday night I had my first crying episode since we've been home, and the funny thing is, it wasn't even over the baby. He was doing great but when Justin came home from work around 2:45 in the morning he woke me up asking where Carlin was because he wasn't chained up outside. Apparantly Carlin broke his harness AGAIN and jumped the fence. So Justin spent about an hour walking the streets looking for him, while I fed and changed the baby and cried because I knew how mad Justin was. Carlin eventually came back but it made for a very long frustrating night.

Yesterday was our first trip to church. We were late of course, but we made it, and Jackson slept the whole time. Everyone was excited to meet Jax and we were glad to make him the newest member. Jackson is the fifth baby born this year I believe so the church family is happy to have all of the new additions. After church we made our way to my parents house so that Jackson could meet his great grandmom porter. She has had a rough year and is recently recovering from a heart attack and pneumonia. In fact, it seemed to me for a while that she was just giving up. But when we walked in, she was dressed (she has just been in her housecoat since she was sick) and she was very excited to finally meet the baby. I was worried about her holding him because she's been so weak, but she held him for almost an hour. She even snapped at me saying "I got him" when I tried make sure he wouldn't wiggle out of her arms. It was definitely priceless and I think it made her day, week, month and year. She was a very proud great grandma and she seemed to be doing so much better than she had been just two weeks ago.

That brings us to today. So far we've spent our morning eating, answering emails, and writing this blog while the baby sleeps before his next meal in 15 minutes. Since we've had a busy weekend we'll probably stay home all day and hopefully I'll accomplish some cleaning and maybe even get to take a shower :) Tonight Julie and her boyfriend Nate are bringing us dinner (our 3rd lasagna since we've been home, ha ha) and then hopefully we'll have an early bedtime. I'll keep my fingers crossed for that one. Tomorrow Jackson will be two weeks old already. It seems like much longer ago that I was in the hospital waiting for the Pitocin to finally start working.

Since it's time for lunch almost, I'll post some new pictures later. Until then...