As Romelie gets older and I get more adjusted to the mom thing, I will certainly try to update this blog more often...but for now, I will do my best to let you know what has been happening in the Dancer household for the last five days.
First let's talk about breastfeeding. I remember after our friends Joe and Jess had their baby, Sophia, I still had to stifle a little grin everytime either of them said the word breast. Yes, I am that immature. Now, I talk about boobs more than I ever thought possible...I pretty much don't care who sees them (provided, of course, it's in some relation to feeding and not just, you know, someone peeking in on me in the shower or anything), and so here comes some candid boobie talk for you all. Sometime on Monday, mom's milk came in, which was interesting. Now I get to wear pads to keep from leaking all over the place. Very odd. I was struggling with the feeding in the first couple of days - I thought I was doing it right because Romelie wasn't having any problems with it - but each subsequent feeding got more and more painful, so apparently I was doing something wrong. Sunday night I read the important parts of my stepsister-in-law's breastfeeding book Angel brought to me, and I was able to self correct a bit so it was less painful. So Tuesday morning, we went to see a lactation nurse at the hospital. She was great. Walked me through a feeding, showed me exactly what to do, gave some helpful hints, and gave me something to help my nipples (which were a bit traumatized from the first two days) some gel packs to help them heal. Now, on Friday, I'm not exactly pain-free, but I'm definitely at an acceptable and possibly even "normal" amount of pain (initial latch sometimes hurts for about 10-15 seconds, but then we're good to go). So yay.
Wednesday...not a good day. I got up for Romelie's 3:00 am feeding, put her down around 4:00, went back to bed...and couldn't sleep. I was freezing, which isn't unusual - sometimes our room is a bit cold - but even after piling on layers and turning up the heat, I was still shaking and couldn't sleep. Finally woke Chason up around 6:30. He brought me some Tylenol and water, but after taking my temperature we found out it was 100.6 degrees. We called into the clinic but it was before hours, so we had to wait for the on-call doctor to call back...meanwhile I'm starting to panic because I don't know if I can feed Romelie and technically she's "overdue" on her feedings (we're not on that strict of a schedule, but I'm trying not to go more than 4 hours tops, and we were going on 4-1/2 at this point). Then she woke up, so I was even more panicked because I didn't know what to do for her. So at about 7:40, on-call doctor says it's fine to feed her (pretty much always, no matter what's wrong with mom with a few unlikely exceptions), and we can get into the clinic to see Dr. Mitchell (my pregnancy and birthing doctor) that morning. By this time, my temp is down and my aching / chills are subsiding, so we went around 10:30. Turns out I did NOT have any sort of obvious bacterial infection, which is good, but that means it's viral which can't really be treated which is not as good. So I just needed to take Tylenol to keep the fever down. Which sounded good, except the Tylenol was only lasting for about 4 hours and I could only take it every 6 hours. So around noon my temp spiked up to 101.7, and at 6:00 pm it was back up to 101.4...which left me exhausted, unable to sleep, and a bit desperate. Hence, emotional breakdown number two for new mom (number one was Sunday night - painful nips + no sleep = sobbing fit). Called into clinic for the third time that day and were told to alternate Tylenol and Advil every three hours. Started doing that - fever went down and hasn't returned. Whew. Long story long, huh?
Also Wednesday we had a home visit from Nurse Mary, who was awesome, and found out that baby is - get this - 8 lb 14 oz. Okay, so...she was born 8lb 8oz, her discharge weight was 8lb 4oz, which would mean she's gained 10 OUNCES in THREE DAYS. The nurse acknowledged that the scales can vary a bit from one to the next, so it may not be 100% accurate, but there's no doubt that she's regained weight and then some. Which is amazing. Good eater.
Yesterday was baby's first Thanksgiving! We went to my dad's, and she got to meet the great uncles and second cousins and second cousins once removed...geneology is fun. So it was a good time, but it messed with her schedule I think, because she did not want to go to sleep at ALL yesterday. Normally she naps most of the day away and is up for a couple hours early afternoon and a couple of hours in the late evening - yesterday her last nap ended around 2:00 pm and she didn't sleep more than 15 consecutive
minutes after that until 12:30 or 1:00 am. Luckily Gramma Diane stayed up with her so Chason and I could get some sleep and then I took over with the middle-of-the-night feedings. And she did manage to still sleep through the night (except, of course, during boob time).
Last update to the longest blog yet (this is why I need to find time to write more often!). This morning we went to an orthopedic specialist (so many doctor's visits! It's the only time I leave the house...) to have her hips checked out. Apparently they make a little clicking noise when you manipulate them a certain way, so the doctors wanted it checked out to make sure she didn't have hip displasia. She got the A-OK. Dr. Hebert manipulated both legs for a while and only felt one little click in the left side (the one that the doctors in the hospital noticed first - only one doctor even said he felt a click in the right hip), and it wasn't out of joint or anything more serious than that. He expects it'll work itself out on its own relatively soon. So no worries there. And when our appointment was done, we came out into the hall and there were three nurses waiting there to see Romelie - apparently they'd heard from our first nurse how cute she was, and they all wanted to see her for themselves. No kidding - Chason and I left feeling pretty proud of our little cutie pie.
So now we're just enjoying the rest of our day at home. Romelie had a visit from Joe (Sophia's dad) and from Kevin and Nicole (though she slept through their visit, so we'll have to try that one again!), and Dr. Mitchell will be stopping by in an hour or so to see her and check on her himself. Park Nicollet and Methodist are awesome, by the way.
Oh! And I just heard her stir so I'm headed down to feed her. Will post pictures later. Bye!
For those who do not know what I'm talking about, Womb Sounds Bear was a gift from my mom. She came to my five-month ultrasound appointment with me and met me with a gift - this fuzzy bear with a knob on his back, and when you turn him on, he makes noises that are supposed to sound like what the baby heard inside the womb - hence, it's calming to a newborn baby because it is familiar to them.
In other news, Romelie lost her umbilical cord this morning. Gross. We had absolutely zero intention of saving this yucky piece of flesh, but I felt like I had to do something to commemorate the event, so I took a picture. Which I will now share with all of you. So you can revel in the ick.
And finally, we dressed Romelie in her Sunday hat today in honor of the Vikings. Mom also tortured the poor kid by dressing her in her Sunday sweater as well (which might fit her next season but is definitely too big this year - it's from when my brother Paul and I were kids...), but we took that off after the photo op. Since Romelie was born, the Vikings are 2-0. Chason says if the Vikings win the rest of the games for the season, she'll have been their good luck charm, and we'll have to change her middle name to Vikings. I told him it could be a nickname. That he uses. In his head.
