Casey's 3 Weeks!!

Casey's 3rd week was a fun one! Granny was here all week long helping us!! Her visit couldn't have come at a better time! Last weekend Daddy got the nasty stomach bug that has been going around so we quarantines him to the upstairs bedroom in the back of the house and thankfully - knock on wood so far - no one else got it! 

This week we have been completely focused on building my milk supply. I want to talk a little about this as I know tons of new mommas and if you are like me and knew you wanted to breastfeed you probably assumed that it would come easy and there would be no issues - I know I did. Boy was I wrong. I had no clue that Casey wasn't getting what he needed until I had a follow up with the doctor and he sent up the red flags. Then even after that - I thought ok I will see a lactations consultant, she will bop me with her magic breastfeeding wand and I will be producing milk like a thoroughbred dairy cow. Wishful thinking….

Come to find out - this last week and a half has been some of the roughest days so far - both physically and emotionally. Physically because I literally feel like my boobs might fall off - no joke. The water in the shower no longer feels good but feels like a thousand tiny needles poking through my skin. Not fun - but it doesn't matter - I will do anything for my sweet boy and so we push through. I am breastfeeding as much as he wants - about every 2 hours and then pumping after every feeding.  Our lactation consultant has advised us that the best way to increase supply is to feed more and pump more - so I am very diligent in keeping to the schedule. Then Casey gets a bottle after that because my body just isn't producing enough (yet…I hope). 

I've had people ask me why don't I just throw in the towel? And I totally get it - it would be so much easier and more convenient to just give him formula. It's more portable, you don't have to worry about breastfeeding and then pumping in public. You don't have to worry about sticking to his schedule - but for me I committed a while ago to trying to make this work - long before I knew there were issues - and I'm not going down without a fight.

Emotionally it has been even harder. I feel like I'm letting him down - like my body is letting me down - and no matter what I do it's just not turning around as fast as I would like. But, when I get in a pity party and a woe is me moment - I remember what Chris always says - life is all about the ups and downs, you have to take the good with the bad. When things are really good, chances are there will be a bump in the road, and when things look bleak they can only get better - the great balance and yin and yang of life. And that's been so true with our journey to our sweet munchkin. We were not able to get pregnant naturally and even had one failed IVF cycle, but the 2nd one worked. We were able to get pregnant with our sweet boy, but had a very scary massive sub chorionic hemorrhage at 8.5 weeks that made us fearful we were losing him. Other than the SCH we had a very easy pregnancy but then had a scary episode with the epidural, but then an "easy" delivery with no tearing and a very easy recovery. You get the point - our journey to this little guy has been full of peaks and valleys - and this is just another one of them.

So where do we stand now? It's been a week and a day since we saw the lactation consultant. Initially there were times during a pumping session where I literally would get nothing - zero, not even a drop. This morning I'm up to about a half an ounce per session - doesn't sound like a lot - but to me I'm so happy today I could cry! CJ is taking my milk plus at least 2 ounces each feeding and growing like a week. His little cheeks are chunking out and when we went for a follow up Thursday - 5 days after our initial meeting - he had gained half a pound!! I'm so thankful we discovered the issue early and are working to correct it. He sees a pediatric dentist on May 19th to evaluate and probably have his lip and tongue ties lasered and we are hoping that only improves things.

We took our first big shopping trip with Granny this week and I totally spoiled him rotten! His wardrobe is officially bigger than mine. I tell my hubby I didn't get to buy anything for 9 months because I didn't know if he was a boy or girl (although in my heart you all know I knew he was a boy) and so now I'm playing catch up. Also, looking back to my post about things we swore we would or wouldn't do with a baby - we always said we would travel and not stay home, etc. Well….we were supposed to go to Indianapolis for the 500 Festival Mini Marathon this weekend - we have been going for probably the past 5-6 years. It's a big family event and this year my mom ran the 5K portion of the race - her first one! We are so proud of her! But we decided not to make the trip - right now with the feeding and pumping schedule and the sheer amount of stuff Casey needs (high maintenance :)) we decided it was too much and too stressful. Definitely next year though! We also did our first family date night - just the 3 of us - at our favorite Mexican restaurant. He was an angel - not one peep from him and they were excited to finally see us!

So with that I'll leave you with the 3 week chalkboard - the last of the weeklies as we move to monthly and a special guest appearance from Granny! Stay tuned - tomorrow starts Motivation Mondays to document my baby weight loss journey! I'm hoping to keep myself accountable and help the other momma's that have new little ones!! 

XOXO

K