{"id":1220,"date":"2008-02-27T13:43:42","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T18:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2008\/02\/27\/day-18-is-the-new-day-3\/"},"modified":"2008-02-27T19:54:54","modified_gmt":"2008-02-28T00:54:54","slug":"day-18-is-the-new-day-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2008\/02\/27\/day-18-is-the-new-day-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 18 is the new Day 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember how Day 3<\/a> was supposed to be the bad day? The day when postpartum emotions and the physical toll of childbirth and caring for a newborn come crashing down on your head leaving you a weeping, exhausted mess? Day 3’s got nothing on Day 18.<\/p>\n

We’d hit a bit of a rough patch the last couple of days that culminated yesterday. I’d been sick (wickedly painful constipation and a head cold, followed by hemmerhoids, followed by the trots, accompanied by a chest cold, with a migraine chaser over the course of a week), the boys had been sick (Tristan has spiked not one but two fevers since Lucas was born, and Simon has had a juicy chest cough for a week), and the nanny has been either sick or absent for all or a part of the last five days. Lucas went through a couple of painfully gassy phases, one in particular on Monday night that left the poor child crying for three hours solid. By dinnertime yesterday, I was bawling my eyes out as I stuffed a frozen meat pie and french fries into the oven for dinner. And you know what finally did me in? The idea that I was not taking good care of Tristan and Simon. I’d been snappish all afternoon, and just couldn’t take any more. I bawled simply because I was overwhelmed and felt terribly guilty for not being a good mother to anyone. It was messy, to say the least.<\/p>\n

The good news is, the bawling was the nadir, and after a good cry I did feel better. Darling Lucas slept a couple of good stretches last night, and I was ready to face the world again today. The headache was gone, the croak in my throat only a minor irritation, and I thought we were back in the game. I had planned to stop by the midwives’ office for a quick weigh-in to check our progress from last week, and then head out to make up the birthday lunch I was supposed to have with my Mom on Monday but that I had to cancel when the nanny called in sick.<\/p>\n

The bad news is, Lucas didn’t gain any weight last week. At all. He’s still the same 9 lbs 12 oz he was last Wednesday. Babies are supposed to regain their birthweight by the time they’re three weeks old, and he’s still four ounces short with his three-week birthday in two days.<\/p>\n

So, instead of a 10-minute weigh-in, I once again missed lunch with my Mom because we had an hour and a half visit with the midwife, where we ironed out a plan. I’ve got a call in to see a Lactation Consultant, which is fine but expensive. I have to feed him every three hours round the clock, on both sides, instead of just one one-side-per-feed pattern I’ve been following. This also means, unfortunately, that I have to set my alarm to wake us both every three hours through the night, and I don’t know which of the two of us will be more irritated by this plan. I have to keep stimulating him during a feed, because I suspect he’s getting satisfied from the foremilk and slacking off into sipping and snoozing during the fatty hindmilk phase of the feed.<\/p>\n

Because he gained nothing, the midwives have to consult with a pediatrician to make sure there is nothing medically preventing him from gaining, so it’s a good thing I’ve already touched base with mine. We have an appointment scheduled for Friday, where hopefully we’ll see at least a couple of ounces of gain, otherwise we’ll have to start a major feeding intervention by renting an electric pump and supplementing that way. If that doesn’t work, we may have to consider formula supplementing, too. And he’ll have to be reweighed on Sunday and every two days until he regains his birthweight at least.<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

Lucas is otherwise perfectly healthy, and I’m gobsmacked that he didn’t gain so much as an ounce, because I’m an experienced mother and I can see we’re doing all the right things. Lots of wet and soiled diapers, I can hear him swallowing, I can feel him draining the breast. Aside from the fact that he’s a horrendous spitter-upper (as were his brothers) and a couple of incidents of obvious gas pain, everything seems perfect. <\/p>\n

Frankly, it’s deja vu all over again, because I went through a lot of this with Tristan. I dunno, maybe I just make crappy milk — or maybe it takes a while for me to ramp up production. With Tristan, I could blame the poor latch and lack of experience. This time, I just don’t know. It’s kind of ironic that Lucas so physically resembles Tristan as a baby, since he’s now showing the same weight-gain issues. Starving Simon, who demanded to be fed every two hours for the first — well, he STILL demands to be fed every two hours, but now it’s pogos and guacamole instead of breastmilk, never had any weight gain issues as a newborn.<\/p>\n

So my job for the next couple of days at least is to exclusively concentrate on feeding this baby and try not to hate my breasts all over again. I swear to god, they’ve truly been my nemesis since I was twelve years old, and continue to vex me all these years later. At least they don’t really hurt anymore, because I can see we’re going to be doing a whole hell of a lot of latching over the next couple of days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember how Day 3 was supposed to be the bad day? The day when postpartum emotions and the physical toll of childbirth and caring for a newborn come crashing down on your head leaving you a weeping, exhausted mess? Day 3’s got nothing on Day 18. We’d hit a bit of a rough patch the … Continue reading “Day 18 is the new Day 3”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baby-days","category-lucas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}