6 weeks

I love the weekend. I especially love weekend mornings. Having Ryan around to help out is the absolute BEST! And the peaceful quiet of the morning (when Owen is typically quite happy and content) is so welcomed!

This past week, Owen endured a painful right of passage...he was circumcised. Ryan was present for the actual procedure, while I opted to sit that one out. Although I'm sure it was not much fun at the time, he is doing quite well now (Owen, that is; although I'm sure Ryan is fine, too!) It was performed during his 1-month check-up, so we also got all his updated stats: 9 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long (as of Monday).

I'm pretty sure we also witnessed O's first social smile this week, although it was directed at the wall instead of at one of us. Whatever...we'll take it! We've gotten a few others since then, but never while looking directly at us. As long as he's showing signs of happiness, I don't really care. I was beginning to think that this child was simply miserable, but I guess I just needed to be a little more patient.

Overall, I'm finally starting to see what everyone meant when they said that things would get better and better every day. It does seem like he is a little bit more happy, a little bit more content, and a little bit more fun every day. Sometimes we still have bad days (or just bad moments), but we've certainly come a long way in six weeks.

Here are a few photos from this past week. He's just so unbelievably cute, I can hardly stand it sometimes!

Just chillin' in my doggy outfit. 'Sup?

Owen in the Moby wrap - his own personal little cocoon.

Practicing "tummy time" with a little help from the Boppy pillow.

Bath time! (O's favorite time of the day.)

A good day

Today has been a pretty good day. It is about 2:30 now and so far, I've managed to get a shower (yeah!), lunch, dusted, swept my kitchen/living room floor, and vacuumed the downstairs floor and couch. Owen has been napping quite a bit (perhaps more than he should), but it allows me to get some things done, which feels really good!

He's due for his afternoon meal in just a few minutes, so I'll keep this brief, but I just wanted to document that there are good days mixed in there with the extremely overwhelming ones! : )

Rock on! (I've even got acne like a rebellious teenager.)

BOTH of my aunts love me!

This outfit is actually for a 6-9-month-old, but daddy wanted me to try it on anyway. Don't I look silly?

One month down

Wow, what a difference a month makes! The past four weeks have felt like a chaotic, confusing, emotionally-draining, out-of-control haze. I really hate to describe the first month of our son's life like that, but it is the truth. Looking back on it, I see clearly that I had NO idea what I was doing...and it showed! But the good news (no, make that great news!) is that it now feels like we've got things a bit more under control. I do not mean to say that we've got it all figured out and know exactly what we're doing. But things just feel a whole lot calmer and the future seems much clearer now. I think Owen and I are starting to figure each other out a bit more and we're finally able to begin establishing a real routine (though he still gets final say on how things are going to go), rather than the "survival" mode we've been working under.

Owen is continuing to gain weight - I estimate that he is somewhere in the 8 pound range by now. We are increasing the amount of milk we give him almost every day it seems; he's just so hungry! Breast feeding (in terms of nursing) never did pan out. I am still doing my best to express milk through the breast pump as much as possible so that he can reap the benefits of breast milk. But he does end up getting about 1-2 bottles of formula a day also because I just can't produce quite enough to keep up with him. We'll try to continue with this for a while and reassess the situation in another few weeks.

Emotionally, I am doing MUCH better these days. I will not sugar coat it - I was down, down, down for a few weeks there. And I'm sure I still have some sad moments and days ahead (all part of the postpartum hormones), but as I mentioned above, the future finally seems so much brighter. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. And the past few nights have been especially encouraging; Owen has gone down after each nighttime feeding without needing to be held and rocked for an hour (yes, that's what we were doing prior to this week!), and he's started going about four hours between feedings throughout the night more consistently (an improvement from the 2 1/2 to 3 hours before).

Here are some recent photos:

Tomorrow is Owen's 1 month birthday! We made it through the "newborn" stage!!! HOORAY!

So, it's not been terribly easy to find time to update this blog lately. Also, I've had a few setbacks that have kept me from writing - I hate to just post negative stuff. But, to sum up the last couple of weeks, I came down with a fever early last week that knocked me out completely for a couple of days. Turns out, I developed mastitis in my left breast (see link for more info). That, combined with the fact that Owen still hadn't returned to his birth weight, put a wrench in the breast feeding for a little while. We HAD to give him a bottle, though I did (and am still doing) my very best to fill those bottles with breast milk instead of formula as much as possible.

Fortunately, my mom arrived last Wednesday, just as I was coming back to life from the fever, and she has been SO helpful, I can't even put it into words. To top things off, Seattle has experienced it's hottest heat wave in 30 years and even set a record yesterday, with highs in the triple digits. For my family in the midwest, before you balk at what weenies we are, keep in mind that only about 15% of the homes out here have air conditioning, and ours is not one of them. Fortunately, Ryan was able to stand in line outside Target yesterday morning and nabbed one of only 8 window a/c units that arrived the night before, so at least our kitchen is cool! : )

Since then, we've experimented with all kinds of different things - nursing, pumping, formula, scheduling, on-demand, swaddling, etc. As of last Friday, Owen had regained his birth weight, and then some, so at least something we did was right! Now, we're still working on finding the right balance that's going to work for our family. As of right now, it's looking like nursing, as an exclusive means of feeding for Owen, is not going to be an option. This saddens me more than I can ever express in words, so I will just leave it at that. And I am hesitant to move to a strictly formula-based diet yet (I really feel that Owen should reap the benefits of breast milk for as long as possible), so I am going to continue pumping as much as I can and giving it to him through a bottle. But I know that I am just not producing enough to meet his demand (which is ever increasing), so I will need to supplement with formula from time to time. And that will probably only increase as time goes on as well.

I guess when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.

My mom leaves tomorrow morning and I am extremely sad to see her go. Mostly I'm afraid to not have her here - her helpful suggestions, her ability to see the bigger picture, her seemingly endless energy, her cleaning and cooking, her love for Owen, and just HER...to talk to and cry with. I wish she could stay forever, but I know that I need to figure this all out on my own eventually. So, that's what I'm going to do. Please pray for me - I really need it!

Here are some pics...will post more soon.

Bathtime

Bringing Owen home from the hospital

More photos...