Eight weeks ago I gave birth to an amazing baby boy. He’s the most incredible gift and I’ve been enjoying my time with him on maternity leave. Sure, there are some moments that are more difficult than others and I’m still working through my PTSD, but it’s all worth it.
BabyJ is eight weeks old, but three weeks “corrected”, which means he is three weeks after his actual due date and that’s where his milestones should be measured from since he was premature. With this being said, he’s definitely farther ahead than we expected. He was holding his head up weeks ago, grabbing onto objects with fierceness very early on, focusing his attention on things for the last couple of weeks, and this week he hit a few new milestones. My favorite – he smiled at me. It only happened once, but it happened, and my best friend was here to see it. She and I both got a little emotional about it; gotta love those mommy-hormones. He starts to pull the corners of his lips up at other times, but he’s still working out those kinks.
We’ve also been going for walks as a way to grab some vitamin d and savor the warm weather before the winter hits. We’ve had some days that have been below 50 degrees already and I am SO not ready for the real cold. The walks are pretty tiring for me, but they’re good for us.
I’ve been worn pretty thin lately. The days at home with him are draining and we’ve both been battling a bout of thrush. Thrush is an evil little infection that can be passed back and form from mom to baby during feeding. I’m fairly certain we’ve had this issue for at least a month, but I tried to drain it from my system. We went on medicine for it last week because breastfeeding was hurting me so badly that I was in tears and couldn’t continue a feed to completion. That, and BabyJ was also uncomfortable and was getting frustrated trying to latch. I started pumping instead of direct feeding, which is actually a LOT more work than putting him to the breast. My medicine is complete, but J is still finishing his… it makes his tummy pretty upset, so that’s the sad part. Gas drops to the rescue!! After six days of pumping, I put him back to me yesterday and he latched like a champ and drained both breasts. It hasn’t been something we’ve been able to replicate since, but we’re working on it. I’m really hoping to keep this breastfeeding thing going for at least another month, but we’ll see. Pumping works for now, but like I said – it’s very tiring.
His Halloween costume arrived. We ordered it off Etsy and I’m excited. I just need to make Brian and my shirts to go with it and we’re all set.
More to come. Time to pump and attempt to grab a little sleep before J wakes up again.
Steps in Mommyhood 