Teatopia

The second time around

Yes, I know. He looks nothing like me and completely like James. I did all the work, it really isn't fair. :-)

I love being a mother of two. The second time around is much, much easier. I feel like I am enjoying it a lot more because I am much more relaxed and confident in my abilities. It's also completely incredible to see Olivia interacting with Liam. She tells him she loves him 20 times a day and says, "It's ok baby Liam. Don't cry."

The first few days were not so easy. Although Liam was nursing like a champ (which was such a relief since I had such difficulty with Olivia), he lost a lot more weight than even Olivia did in the beginning. We noticed he wasn't pooping and peeing as much as he should, and we took him to the doctor on Monday to check his weight. He was down to 7lbs 8 ozs from 8 lbs 10 ozs. Not good. I was devestated, but also confused since he was nursing a lot. His umbilical cord stump was also getting a little infected, so they prescribed some ointment and said that since my milk was just coming in, we'd give it a few days and re-check his weight. His cord ended up falling off after just 5 days and by then, everything was fine with it. Yesterday, at his 2nd appointment, he was up to 8 lbs, 5 ozs. That's a whopping 13 ozs in just 3 days! I was so happy and also proud! I love breastfeeding. There's something amazing about nourishing a child with your body. Also, he is definitely wetting and pooping enough.

Speaking of diapers, I don't know how you people with boys manage(d) to change a diaper wihtout everything getting saturated. I thought I'd be fine and could keep Mr. Winkie under control. Ha! This boy has a fire hose and it goes everywhere. Does this stop at some point? Surely they don't pee everywhere when they're 8 months old, do they? While we're on the topic, since I asked you all about circumcision a while back, I figured I should tell you what we chose. We actually decided to keep him intact. While I have nothing against circumcision (obviously, since we considered it), after talking to the pediatrician and doing lots of research, we decided it wasn't necessary. Socially and religiously, it wasn't really an issue for us, so we left it alone. I'm happy with the decision and so is James.

Last night, Liam had his first real bath, and he screamed the entire time. I'm still hopeful he'll end up liking bath time. Olivia screamed through her first bath but then never cried again. He doesn't cry much unless he wants to nurse (which is constantly) or if he's getting his diaper changed.

Since his belly button is now in good shape, we've been using cloth diapers, and I love them! We actually started out with cloth when he came home from the hospital, but I was worried about them rubbing his belly button since it was already kinda gooey, so we used Huggies until a couple days ago. They were easier to keep lower. The cloth kept riding up and touching his belly button. I'll have to post some pics of some seriously cute newborn fluffy fanny!

He's a pretty easy baby. I don't want to jinx anything, but he still sleeps most of the time. We wakes up to nurse, and usually goes back to sleep. I just hope it lasts. Olivia doesn't really wake up when he fusses, so it's been an easy arrangement with her in the bed with us and him next to me in the Arm's Reach Co-sleeper. We're going to try to transition them both out of our room at the same time so Olivia doesn't feel it's because of him. We'll tell her that both of them get to sleep in their big beds. She already naps a lot in hers, so she's on her way anyway.

For some reason, for me, this whole experience keeps bring up the decision whether or not we're done having children. James would like to but says we can talk about it later. I think I'm mourning no longer being pregnant even though I'd much rather have Liam here on the outside. Being pregnant becomes your identity for a while, and I feel out of place a little bit. Also, I think the idea that I might've given birth for the last time is somewhat sad. It's probably just post-partum hormones making me think about all this.

Well, I'm off to nurse Liam! Birth story is still in the works.

Posted by Hannah at June 13, 2008 04:02 PM