My Plan

Thanks for the advice! I think if I decide to do anything it will be pump and give it to her. I've been feeding her like crazy since yesterday. I honestly don't think I have a supply issue because I always have milk coming at all times, lol. She just needs to stop being a lazy eater, so we are working on that first. I make sure she is good and awake when I feed her and I won't let her go to sleep, so she seems to be doing better.
I do have a really nice electric pump. It's a Medela Pump In Style. I think it was $300 when we bought for Max. I pumped exclusively for him for 5 months, and only had to start supplementing in the end. It was really hard work, so I was hoping to avoid the pump for a while this time around. I will have to start pumping more in a month or so to get her used to a bottle for when I start back to school this fall.
I think I'm going to make sure she is good and full tomorrow for her weigh in too. That way maybe a couple extra ounces would appease their concerns. I'm not worried about her at all! I think she is fine and her weight is exactly where it should be at this point!

Ugh. Should I just not and say I DID?

I took Aspen to the doctor today to have her jaundice levels checked again. She is still yellow, especially the whites of her eyes. I thought she looked fine, but on Friday the LC thought she looked pretty yellow and suggested I take her in. I waited until today to see if things improved, and I didn't notice any changes so I took her in as a precaution just to make sure. Her bili levels were still up, but not enough to warrant having light therapy, so that was good news. Poor girl did NOT like having her foot pricked though!

BUT...the doctor is concerned that Aspen isn't gaining weight like she should be. Since she was 3 days old she has only gained 4 ounces and she is now two and a half weeks old. She is back at her birth weight of 7 lbs 3 oz, but just barely. The thing is though, she eats ALL the time. I let her eat whenever she wants, and if it's been longer than 3 hours I wake her up and feed her. But the pedi wants me to supplement her with formula for the next couple days and then bring her in for a weight check on Friday. He wants me to feed her for 20 minutes on each breast then offer an ounce of formula after that. I really really don't want to give her formula. I wasn't even planning on giving her a bottle for a while. He said I could pump for her and then offer that after I get done bf'ing, but I'm not sure she would even take it then. She usually takes about 30-40 minutes to eat and then she's done.
So I need advice, what would you do? Would you supplement with formula after bf'ing or just offer some pumped milk only? I just don't really see the need for the formula if I'm willing to bf her and then try to top her off with pumped breast milk, ya know? Now I'm worried that I'm not making enough milk for her which makes me SOOOOO nervous because that was one of the issues I had when I was pumping for Max. She does seem to eat all the time and seems content, so I just don't know.
Do you think his (the pedi's) concerns are actually legit? I wasn't concerned at all about her weight and the actual visit was just to check her jaundice levels. So now I have to worry about this!

Where is it?

Max asked a very important question about Aspen yesterday.
After looking at her with a puzzled look on his face, he inquired, "Mommy, why doesn't Aspen have a neck?"

And a couple cute pictures I took today of my neckless child,




We are off to the pedi later to have them look at her to see if she needs to be checked for jaundice again. Her eyes are still SO yellow and her skin is as well. I took her to the Nursing Station the other day to buy some nursing bras and a nursing tank and they were commenting that I really should have her checked again because they see babies all day and she looked really yellow compared to them. So I waited a few days to see if it got any better and I don't think it has (although I don't think it has gotten worse at all), but its always better safe than sorry I guess. I'm sure they will say that she is fine and I'll have wasted a $25 copay. I'll let you know how it goes!

Skin Sensitivity Update

So I washed everything in the Seventh Generation detergent and her skin looks 100% better!!!! She does have some places on her face still, but they appeared after she was laying on my chest, so I think I'm just going to start washing everything in the same detergent. Hopefully this continues to help!!!

A Girl and Her Bear

I did weekly photos of Max for his first year and I wanted to do the same for Aspen. I decided to use the bear, Pingo, that Max made for her to take her pictures with every week.
Here are the first 3,

In the hospital a couple days old,

Week 1 (same week as first one)

Week 2

And quick update for today:
Baby weight check- 6 lbs 15 oz (same as last Friday, but only 4 oz away from her birth weight, so I think she will probably be back at her birth weight by her two week b-day next Monday.)

Sensitive Skin

It seems like Aspen has very sensitive skin. In the hospital we noticed some little hive like places on her legs, but didn't think too much about it. Now she keeps getting them everywhere, on her head, cheeks, legs, chest and her arms have a lot of them. We went out today and bought some new hypo-allergenic detergent and I'm in the process of going through and rewashing everything that's hers. I was using ALL free and clear detergent, thinking that would be ok. Any other ideas on what it could be? I'm hoping rewashing her clothes and blankets will make them go away.
The spots don't seem to be bothering her, but it's so hard to tell at this point, she's still so little. But they do look like they would make her miserable :(

One Week

Aspen is one week old today. I can't believe how happy we are right now with our little girl. She is absolutely wonderful and better than I could have ever imagined. This birth experience was so completely different in so many ways than Max's. Much more calm. Breastfeeding is going so well this time. I can't believe it. I told Curt before the c-section that I had a pep talk with the "ladies" and told them that they weren't allowed to let me down this time, lol. I think they listened! I have a feeling we have many more months of breastfeeding ahead of us! I'm soooooo excited about this!

Aspen sleeps great too. I'm not totally exhausted this time and actually feel like I am getting some rest. She's waking up twice a night, but the first time she only wakes for about 10-15 minutes and then goes back to sleep. The second time she wakes takes longer because we usually have to change her diaper then too. Curt and I were saying that she's too good, it almost makes us want to have another, lol.

Anyways, I've been wanting to share lots more pictures with you, but I haven't had time to copy/paste all the links here. So you can view the whole gallery if you are interested. The gallery starts at the beginning, with my last ever belly picture two hours before the c-section.

Oh wait, the first set of pictures are from the last day...so they are a little out of order...oh well.

Pictures

ABC's

Wanna know what brings tears to my eyes?

When your first born reacts like this to their new sibling.

Pictures

So as you might have guessed, Aspen made her debut on Monday! We are still in the hospital, so I don't have time to write out her entire birth story, but I just wanted to share a few pictures of her with you that we've taken the past couple days of her life. She is SO good and we are really enjoying her! She is so good already and loves her sleep!

Aspen Elise born May 5, 2005, 7lbs 3oz, 20 inches

Isn't she beautiful?!

Max's Birth Story

In light of upcoming events, I decided to go back and look at Max's birth story. It's funny how you forget some of the details and then some of them you can still visualize like it was yesterday (my epidural nightmare last time is one thing I don't think I will ever forget). My birth story this time probably won't be as long as Max's. The plan now is just to show up on Monday morning at 9:30 and then wait for a c-section at 11:30. I'm really looking forward to it being a calm experience.

This is the story of Max's arrival that I typed out a few days after he was born:

On Tuesday January 4th, I had been feeling a little sick all day, but not too bad. I had diarrhea all day, but that wasn’t unusual so I didn’t think anything of it. Plus I was feeling as pregnant as ever, especially after the “not-so-promising” doctors visit on Monday. Later that evening Curt and I sat down to watch Brad Pitt’s new release, “Troy” and I heated us up some leftover pasta for dinner. The movie was three hours long and I started feeling a little weird about an hour into it. I couldn’t eat any of my dinner because I was feeling so nauseous. After the movie I started writing down the times that I was feeling the contractions, and they were only about 8-10 minutes apart. We decided to go to bed so we laid down. When I was laying down, I really felt sick and the contractions were a little painful, so I decided to call into the hospital, at least just to talk to whoever was oncall. Dr. Miller told me that I probably wasn’t in active labor but that I should come into labor and delivery to get checked anyways, just to see what was going on. So Curt and I left the house, thinking that we would probably be home sometime later that night. We didn’t really take everything, just threw the bags that I had packed in the trunk.
In labor and delivery, they hooked me up to the monitor and told me they were going to keep me on it for an hour. They checked me and I was only a centimeter. I was having regular contractions but they were small, so they told me they were probably going to send me home. About half an hour later I began vomiting and getting really sick. They tried giving me a shot in the hip for the nausea but nothing was working. I began to run a high fever and the vomiting continued. At about 3:30 a.m. they told me that I wasn’t going home and they had to induce me because of the fever and the fact that it wasn’t good for Max. I was so exhausted from being sick that I really wasn’t feeling up to having a baby at this point. I was weak and tired and still vomiting. But we were there and we began to get excited because we were going to have a baby that day!
They began the pitocin at around 5 a.m. and at 8 a.m. I asked for some Stadol, just to take the edge off of the contractions. The nurse went to ask the doctor about it and she came back and said that I couldn’t have the Stadol, because apparently Max wasn’t handling the contractions very well, and it could affect him. So she offered me the epidural, which I accepted. The doctor came in and broke my water, (which by the way, was soooo painful!) and they attached an internal monitor to Max’s head. After that the epidural guy came in and gave me the run down on what he was going to do. Then my epidural nightmare began…
He had to try four times to get the epidural in. I was having massive contractions that were coming very quickly and he was trying to put it in between contractions, but they were just coming so fast. He asked if I had a history of scoliosis, which I didn’t think that I did. I began vomiting while he was trying again, all during a very hard contraction. At one point, I almost said to just forget it, because I was in so much pain. Poor Curt had to watch while the nurse stood in front of me. He looked like he was about to cry. But the anesthesiologist was able to get it in finally and once the medicine went into effect it was great.
I got comfortable and began to try and get some rest. They checked me again and I was still only 1 cm, after all of the pitocin. After each contraction, Max’s heart rate would drop and the doctor became concerned. She told me that she didn’t think that things were looking promising for a vaginal delivery because of the fever and the effect it was having on him. So at 1 pm, after we had been there for 13 hours (on pitocin for 8 hours) she decided to that we needed to do the c-section. I was so tired and wore out that I didn’t really even have the energy to comprehend that I was about to have Max. They got us ready and within 30 minutes we were in the operating room.
At 2:03 pm Max Riley Stucky was born. They pulled him out and he was screaming! Curt went over to look at him while they were cleaning him off. He brought him over to me, but my arms were numb from the pain medicine that I couldn’t touch him, which made me so sad. But he was just absolutely beautiful. He had an APGAR score of 9, 9 and he weighed 7 lbs 7 ounces. All the nurses kept commented on his huge feet!
They took me to the recovery room while they wheeled Max to the nursery, where all of our family was waiting to meet him. Curt came back to recovery with me and we were there for two and half hours. Finally they were able to get us in a room and I went up where they brought Max in. I still hadn’t got to really look at him yet, or even touch him, and I was really excited. They put him in my arms and I just started crying. All of our family was in the room taking pictures and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Afterwards, when the doctor came in and talked to us, she said that when she was checking me after the delivery, it looked like the inside of my uterine wall had an infection. This was probably the cause of the fevers and nausea, and that it was a good thing that I didn’t stay home thinking that I had caught the flu or something. I had to be put on some antibiotics and we were in the hospital for four days. We were finally released on Sunday the 9th.