Two Weeks Home With A Newborn
Now... You would think after four kids I know what I’m doing. The problem is every time do you have a child, you lose a little bit more of your mind. It’s always a joke in my house that I am officially the “forget mom.” My kids are always telling me that I forgot that they told me something or I forgot some thing that just happened. Sometimes I swear they use it against me and make crap up.
The problem is it’s kind of true. After four kids I still forget what to do. I find myself googling at three in the morning making sure the color of spit up that just projectiled out of my daughter’s mouth is normal. Oh what in the world did moms do before Google existed?
Our first two weeks home with Miss Emelia were pretty hectic. You forget all the exhaustion that goes into that first month with a newborn. The fact that your days consist of your boob hanging out, changing diapers, looking like a complete hot mess, and postpartum diapers. OK no diapers, but pads. My 5 year old son snuck into the bathroom while I was changing into a new one and let me know that I wear adult diapers and thinks it’s the funniest joke he has ever experienced his entire life. Not to mention told his teacher that his mom wears diapers now. Thanks Lucas.
Since she was born at 37 weeks we had a few extra check boxes to mark off the list for the doctors. Apparently 37 weekers have a hard time gaining weight and can struggle with jaundice. Emelia dealt with both. This led us to almost daily doctors visits. She was 7 pounds and 11 ounces when she was born, but when we left the hospital she was 6 pounds and 14 ounces. They got all concerned and worried because apparently they don’t want you to lose more than 10% of your body weight. I’m pretty sure my other kids lost about the same, but who knows or can remember! She struggled to gain weight the first week so we ended up at the doctors doing weight checks daily.
She also had a touch of jaundice. Again because she was born at 37 weeks it was a bigger concern to them. Add that on top of her lack of weight gain and we ended up at the lab checking her bilirubin every day.
We officially got told by her pediatrician last week that we do not need to check her bilirubin anymore and that she has reached 8 pounds so the weight checks started to become spaced out. It’s such a small thing but it felt like the biggest achievement of my life. As a mom all you want to do is take care of your kid. Knowing that she was struggling to gain weight, all I wanted to do was nurse her as often as I could to make sure I could solve the problem. Then I found myself crying in the middle of the night trying to get Emelia to latch on only to be met with her in tears. Hearing the doctor say that she’s gained the weight back and then some was huge. He smiled at me and told me good job. I swear I could’ve broken down right there.
I thought we were out of the woods until the following Monday. My previously 8 pound baby girl dropped down to 7.2 pounds I just stared at the scale in disbelief... How the hell did she drop down so low again?
I let myself get so excited and then I found myself broken again. I started to cry at the doctor’s office because I felt like a complete failure. Our pediatrician told me if she lost anymore weight we would have to get her re-admitted to the hospital. He said we had to start adding formula because he wasn’t sure if I was producing breast milk anymore. I had the same problem with Lucas so I knew this was possible. I was trying so hard to prevent it. Giving her formula felt like I failed as a mom.
I spent my entire day in bed crying. I let myself grieve and fully feel the emotions. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to increase my milk supply or if I’ll have to stop like I did with Lucas and do formula only. Either way a fed baby is a happy baby. I’m not going to allow myself to feel horrible just because things didn’t go as planned. I love Emelia and will always do the best I can for her. Formula is another way to fill my daughter’s belly and that’s ok.
Newborn days are rough. You’re hardly getting any sleep, dealing with transitions for your other kids, trying to remember you’re still a person aside from feeding, so many things are out of your control, trying to not feel like a failure when things don’t go the way you plan, finding time to actually spend with your husband, and try not to forget to pick up your kids from school.
Let’s add some hormones on top of that one. Then you get me, crying in the kitchen at 2 AM because I can’t find something to eat. Yep, that was me… Like two nights ago… I try to remind myself that it’s the hormones causing me to feel insane and be irrational. It does nothing in the moment but I still tried anyways. I end up yelling at my boys for constantly touching me, hiding in the bathroom to nurse and eat a snickers bar, crying at toilet commercials, and I’m trying to remember why am currently mad at my husband.
It’s not just my emotions either. My boys have done so well since their sister got home. They love her more than I thought possible and are always looking for ways to help or to hold her. The problem is they’re all going through their own little transitions at the same time. I expected my youngest son to go through a harder transition since he’s no longer the baby, but I didn’t expect all three of them to go through one. Trying to balance my hormones and there’s gets a little bit tricky. At the end of the day finding time to snuggle each one of them and tell them how much I love them somehow works. They all get that things are a little crazy right now and just want extra mom and dad time. My husband has definitely stepped up to do this while I was too sore to do much else. Now that I’m starting to feel better we are looking at doing more date nights again with the kids. They’re counting down for their nights already!
So that’s our family in a nutshell since baby girl joined us. Our house is messy, we are all emotional, mom and dad are sleep deprived, and we are all trying to love each other a little extra.