Evie is a month old now! I’d like to say it went fast but it didn’t. It is however a big blur!
Two weeks ago I felt like something was wrong, She screamed a lot and only ate for 5 mins at a time. Clearly this wasn’t right. I called her ped and they got me in right away. She was losing weight! She was down from 6.11 her birthweight to 6.3. They gave her a bottle of formula, which she sucked right down. I have to say this broke my heart, I bawled my eyes out. My 2 sons never had a bottle, let alone formula. I felt like such a failure.
We scheldueled an appt with a lactation consultant for later that day. Again, I felt like a failure. I mean, I nursed the boys for over a year each. Why couldn’t I do it this time? We discovered her mouth and my nipple just weren’t lining up correctly. What was easy for the boys now became a constant fight with Evie. She also fell asleep almostimmediately.
The prescription was force her to stay awake and nurse for at least 20 mins on each side, then give her a bottle, then pump more milk. Luckily I had something like 9 bags of milk in the freezer, not bad for a two week old baby. Unfortunately the frozen milk ran out and I had lost a lot of my milk so we had to resort to formula for her bottle. Again, it was hard. Nothing against mothers who formula feed, I just feel that mommy milk is 100% better.
I felt like a cow. My days turned into nursing, bottle feeding, pumping and keeping a log of everything, diapers and feedings. Night and day. I was burnt out, exhausted and crying a lot. Luckily, last wed, her weight was up to 6.7! It was working! I could tell, she was a happier baby, cooing and awake much more often. She has another appt this wed and I’m sure she will be at least her birthweight.
It’s been hard, especially when strangers come up to us and tell me how tiny my baby is. “Yes, thanks, she’s slowly starving because nursing is so difficult, thanks for remining me.”
She’s doing great now, and at most we only have to give her 4oz of forumla a day. Yesterday it was 2.
So obviously, I haven’t had time for knitting. I only have one project on the needles, Branching Out. I’m using a delicious Baby Twist Alpaca. I’ve managed 6 repeats in… 3 weeks I think? Sad. I did get my invite to ravelry! Haven’t had a chance to do more than sign up though, I’m prettyfbonnet if you want to add me!
Hope you’re all doing well, and thanks for reading, I didn’t mean to disappear!
I hope to post photos soon, I have some fun ones to share, Zane’s chess tourney, Mom’s belly dancing, Mom with her 4 grandkids, Andrew’s “yoga” and Sean’s baby feet tattoo… lots!
October 8, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Oh, hang in there, I feel for you. My second had a lot of trouble with latching on right; she did this weird tongue thing. Thank goodness she was my second, and thank goodness Evie was your third, because if she were my first, I would have been sure it was all me and I would have stopped or greatly reduced nursing as a result. However, my first one had a great suck and as a result I had tons of milk, so I knew it wasn’t me!
I remember those days, though, of nursing and pumping and nursing. And pumping again and getting almost nothing. And mine wasn’t as sleepy as Evie (some babies are ‘content to starve’ as the lactation consultants put it). Glad she’s doing better. Hard to knit and nurse (or pump!) simultaneously. Hard to do much of anything and pump, though I got good at it and I bet you have too.
This too shall pass! Good for you with putting all that effort into it (specially with the boys at home too), because doing all that pumping turns nursing from something easy to something medical and requiring washing and measuring and doing and not being able to do it while reading a story to your older ones, for example. But it’s all in a good cause, since the whole idea is not to have to do it much any more, and she’s getting the mommy’s milk which is the important thing!
Sorry to leave such a long comment, your account just took me right back to that blurry time in our lives….
October 9, 2007 at 8:06 am
I am really sorry to hear that the breastfeeding isn’t going as planned. It sounds like things are on the up so hopefully you won’t have to continue with the formula much longer!
I have thought about this a couple of times, God only knows what might happen once the baby is here, I want to breast feed too, so I hope everything works out!
October 12, 2007 at 3:58 am
Hope the breastfeeding gets better.
October 17, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Hang in there!
I think, later on, you won’t need any more formula,but just breast milk for her. She will be very FINE. 
I totally understand your situation, I feel like a cow too.
Every day is : wake up, feed, sleep, feed, sleep , feed… eat. drink..
non stop..
but, keep it up. I shall give the best to our babies. Breastfeeding is the best of all.
GOd bless you and your adorable baby.
And hope you can go back to your needles again soon.
(I did go back to knitting in 2nd month, I just couldn’t wait to touch them again! )
November 20, 2007 at 6:21 am
Hope all is well!
February 9, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I am a beginning knitter and I came across your blog looking for knitting patterns. I just wanted to send you an invite to a website with a lot of knitting mommas who love to talk about babies and little ones. My name is Kim/ Lady Orizas on the site and I really hope you come check us out. I know your blog about Breastfeeding is old, but it is old hat for me (I”m desperately trying to wean my 1 1/2 yo daughter) so we can talk about that too. Anyway the site is http://www.globalfamilyroom.com I hope you decide to give us a look!