The first week

I can't believe that this time last week we were on our way to the hospital for Scott to be born!  This has been an exciting, joyful, sometimes frustrating week of transition for the three of us, but on the whole I think things are going very very well.

Scott at 1 week old:

Height and weight:
Birth - 6lbs, 20in
Leaving the hospital - 5lbs 7oz
Newborn check (today) - 5lbs 12 oz

Feeding:
Scott has been a champion eater since the very beginning.  The nurse latched him on to me in the recovery room when I basically a dead body with a groggy brain attached, and he fed eagerly all on his own.  Because he's so little and because he's not a baby who demands to be fed RIGHT NOW, I've tried to be attuned to his hunger cues - especially in those very early days - to make sure he's getting enough to eat.  I'm also pushing the nursing sessions during the day to try to get him full before bedtime so we have fewer wake-ups. We had his newborn check up today, and the doctor was very happy with how much he'd gained since we were discharged.  He also pointed out Scott's man-boobs as a sign that breastfeed was going well because he was getting estrogen from me (really!).


Sleeping:
Scott's fussy time is from about 7pm - 1am.  It can be a constant cycle of feed, diaper, soothe, feed, diaper, soothe, feed, diaper, soothe over and over and over again before he finally settles down and really goes to sleep.  But after that, he sleeps through the night (with normal breaks for nursing and diaper changes) and naps well during the day.  At first he slept on my chest or between us on a pillow or the Boppy (I know... don't call child protective services), but we've since migrated him to the swing at the foot of our bed.  He naps just fine downstairs in the pack n play and seems impervious to noise, which I hope will last.      


Diapering:
While we used the Pampers provided by the hospital because we didn't want to bring home extra laundry, we've been using cloth ever since and I really like them.  Just like everything else, there's been a learning curve to using them but we're starting to figure out what works.  After a couple juicy diaper blowouts that left us with an entire load of laundry and no clean diaper covers from the service, we made a trip out to the diaper store Saturday to get some extra (cuter) covers and some tips on keeping things - ahem - contained.  We - especially Daniel - are becoming experts, though, and I'm planning to do a whole post on cloth diapering later.

Outings:
In addition to a trip to the diaper store and Target, we went to baby's first ugly sweater party on Saturday evening.

Our first awkward family photo

On Sunday we made it to church and then to a short portion of our singing group's Christmas potluck.

Today we had baby's first physical, which went really well.  As I said, the doctor was happy with Scott's weight gain and said everything else looks normal.  He examined his hip mobility and said that looked good, which is a minor concern because being breech carries and extra risk of hip dysplasia (yeah.. like dogs get).

As for me:
I'm feeling pretty good.  I go through waves where I feel great and waves where I feel exhausted and emotional.  I'm gaining energy and mobility day by day, and I'm trying to slowly cut back on the amount of pain medication I'm taking.  My incision still looks Frankenstein-ish (although not as much as when the staples were still in - ick) but the edema in my middle is starting to go away.  It's no fun to post pictures of my belly anymore, but I'd say I look like I'm about 4 months pregnant.  I'm still wearing maternity clothes because I think the waist band of regular pants would irritate my incision, and there's no way my old XS-sized tops will fit while I'm nursing.  I'm going to have to do some serious wardrobe evaluation in the next couple weeks...