Part 3

The first picture is Gavin with his two cousins. Its hard to believe that my neice is only 5 months old yet she is so much bigger than Gavin!! The remaining pictures were taken when Gavin was around 12 days old. I love his feet!!

So I swear I will try to make this post not as long. I couldn't believe all that I wrote in the last post. Hello Novel!!!

Thursday, March 1st

Things went really well overnight and I was starting to feel a little stir crazy sitting in the house. I still needed to pick up a prescription from Walmart so I decided I would try to go for our first outing. I was a little worried about people trying to touch my 3 day old baby but thankfully my strollers canopy connected seemesly with the canopy of the car seat so when we were in the store no one could see what I was trying to hide. It took a long time to get ready to leave. I felt like I was going to forget something...diapers...second outfit..etc. I quickly realized I was overpacking for what was going to be a twenty minute trip out of the house. In the end, we survived walmart with no one touching the baby, no diaper explosions and no screaming baby.

Friday, March 2nd. Seriously one of the scariest days of my life thus far.

Again the weather forecaster was calling for more severe storms. By the time Gavin and I got out of bed that morning, things were looking worse and worse to the west of us. You know it's going to be a bad weather day, when they start telling parents that the schools are closing early and releasing kids. Around noon the skies were becoming black as night. We already had multiple tornado reports in the area. Shortly before 1pm our tornado sirens began screaming. I live in a two story townhouse with no basement. I have an end unit where the bathrooms are against the outside wall making them unsafe places to be in the event of a tornado. My only option is to drive 5 minutes to a church that opens it's basement in the event of severe weather or ride it out in the hallway closet under the stair case. I had been watching the weather like a hawk all day and it seemed like a severe storm cell was going to pass to the north of me but it briefly head due east putting it directly in the path to my home. The weather man started to report large hail with the storm cell and then they thought they saw the tell tail sign of a tornado. Multiple reports from spotters started to come in saying that there was definitely a funnel cloud associated with this storm. I knew I only had a short time to make a decision of whether or not I should stay at the house or try to make a run for the church. At that moment, the wind started to howl and I could hear my roof moan and crack with every gust. I grabbed Gavin and my cat (my dog was still with my parents) and hunkered down in the closet with me huddling over Gavin and a thick sleeping bag over the top of us. At that moment I wished I was back at the hospital and not at my house.

The storm took about 5 minutes to pass completely over us. I have no idea how I got so lucky for a second time but I did. Just up the street it looked like it had snowed. There was about 2 inches of golf ball size hail. All the windows were blown out in the houses in the northern part of my neighborhood. There were multiple houses that lost their roofs. Trees were down everywhere. It looked like a war zone.

I think the last count was 81 tornadoes in the region with many lives lost. I hope this will not be a sign of a violent spring storm season.

Saturday, March 3rd - Sunday, March 10th

My parents finally arrived late in the day. It was fun seeing my mom hold the baby. Unfortunately, my dad has never been a baby person. He wouldn't hold Gavin until the last day they were in town and that's only because there were 8 people in the house begging him to do it for a photo. I was kind of offended by it all.

Since my dad was still in a lot of pain from his knee replacement surgery I offered up my bedroom for their stay. I knew the couch would be the best option for me since, at that time, Gavin was staying up all night long and I was afraid I would fall asleep breastfeeding in bed.

Gavin had his first doctors appointment on that Tuesday and offered to allow both of my parents to come. I was a little surprised when my dad said he would go, especially since he was in a foul mood all morning. Looking back, I should have known the signs of my dad about to blow up. My dad has always had a short fuse and when he gets mad he yells, swears, and sometimes throws things. He's gotten better over the years but he still has his moments and it can be a little scary and definitely embarassing when he blows up in public. Gavin's appointment was at 10:50 but they asked us to arrive 10 minutes prior for paper work. We arrived right on time and filled out the paper work. It was only 10 minutes past the appointment time and my Dad was already making comments especially when he saw people, who had come in after us, get called back. I tried to explain that there are 8 doctors in the practice and that was probably why they were getting called back. My mom and I tried to keep the conversation lite and mom joked that Dad has never been in a pediatricians office before so he wouldn't know what it's like to wait with screaming children surrounding you. That just set him off. He started swearing, I wouldn't go as far as saying yelling, and saying that he was tired of everyone saying that he didn't go to doctors appointments when we were kids. There were a couple of other people with kids in the waiting room at the time and I was just praying that the kids couldn't hear what my dad was saying. Here it's Gavin and I's first visit to the pediatrician's office and I thought for sure my Dad would be kicked out. He kept swearing about how he just wanted to go back home. I was pissed but, like my mom, I knew better to not say anything because it would just set him off even more. I offered to let him sit out in the car but he just sat in the waiting room fuming. Thankfully the nurse called us back within minutes of my dad's little episode.

Gavin was down to 7lbs 6oz by the time we left the hospital. By this appointment, which was 6 days after being released from the hospital, Gavin was down to 7lbs 3oz and still stayed at 19 inches long. The ped said I needed to wake him up more often for feedings and to come back the next monday. I started supplementing a 2oz bottle once a night because I felt like although he was sucking, I didn't hear him swallowing anything when being fed. I asked if I should pump to see how much milk I was producing but the ped said it wasn't necessary.

I love my ped, she's so nice! We got to talking in the middle of the appointment and she asked me if I would mind if she gave out my information to her sister who has been starting to look into becoming a SMC. I agreed and am kind of excited more women are looking into doing it. It's funny but in the last week, I've had multiple women (older family friends who never had children, co-workers, a nurse) who said they had wished they had made the decision I had. It was really reassuring that I made the right decision.

By the time we got to the waiting room my dad calmed down but didn't really say anything to us the rest of the day. He just sat upstairs in my room on his machine to increase the mobility of his leg. I was a little worried that his behavior wouldn't change and it was going to be a looooonnnnggg week.

Gavin began only waking up once during the night that tuesday, which allowed me to get enough sleep to do our Wednesday trip to cincinnati. It was a 3 1/2 hour trip to see my Grandmother. Gavin did really well and slept the whole way there and the nearly the whole way back. I think the trip screwed up my breastfeeding though. We were on the go so much that day, I never had time to pump and I wasn't quite comfortable breast feeding in public so I kept supplementing with formula that day. My grandmother was hilarious. She's so damn feisty. We went out for lunch and I kept Gavin in his car seat while we were eating. She said"Kids these days spend too much time in their car seats". Later that afternoon, Gavin was sleeping on my chest while we sat around and got caught up on things. All of sudden she turns to me and says "your going to spoil him if you hold him all the time". Haha. I totally called her out for giving me contradictory criticism. Everyone got a good laugh.

My sister, her husband and her kids arrived on Thursday. They stayed at a hotel. It was kind of cool that day but we all headed out to the park with the kids. My sister takes some amazing photos so we spent the rest of the day trying to get some good photos of Gavin and her kids.

The rest of the family arrived on Friday. Man did I have a full house!! My other Grandmother ended up getting the flu so she couldn't come down with the family so that was one less person and my uncles decided not to come down. In all, we still ended up with 12 people (including Gavin and I) and three dogs huddled up in my living room and kitchen. I don't think I held Gavin for more than 30 minutes that day. He was awake and alert the whole day. My family must have worn him out so much that he slept through the night three nights in a row!

Everyone left on Sunday. It was sad to see everyone go but I was ready to have my place to myself so I could start getting into a good routine with Gavin. My mom was bawling that morning that she didn't want to leave Gavin and I. I offered to put a futon in the baby's room so she could move in :) That would definitely solve my daycare dilemna. My dad was in another one of his pissy moods and was barking orders at my mom to start packing the car. I wanted to strangle his neck. I'm glad Gavin won't remember what he was saying because that is not what I want to expose him to. I feel bad for my mom but she needs to get a back bone and stand up for herself.

At the beginning of the week, I wasn't planning on going back home to WI during my maternity leave but my family convinced me to come for Easter. Now I'm trying to come up with an extra two hundred dollars. Anyone have any school research papers that need to be written??? :)

Monday, March 12 to today.

This house has become so peaceful. Gavin's such a good baby. He almost never cries and is a good sleeper. We take the dog for a walk every day and he seems to like it. The dog has been really good with the baby too. Every once in awhile I catch Cooper licking the baby's toes and he get's this guilty look on his face. It's kind of funny, it's my dog's guilty pleasure.

We took Gavin back to the ped's office for a weigh in on Monday and he didn't gain a single ounce in a week!! They told me to start pumping to see how much I was producing and to step up his feedings. I was also instructed to not let him sleep through the night anymore. When I started pumping at the beginning of the week I was getting 2 oz per session but by Thursday it was down to an ounce. Thankfully I received a lot of free formula from the hospital and registering with enfamil. The low milk production is so frustrating! I am now taking Fenugreek 3 capsules, 3 times a day to help my supply. My sister also suggested drinking a beer a day but I'm going to wait to see how the fenugreek works.

We went back to the peds office on Friday and Gavin is up to 8lbs!! I can't believe he gained that much in four days. They told me I should still pump but I can start letting him sleep through the night again. I'm still waking up twice a night to pump though so it's not really helping me get more sleep. I'm hoping by the next time I post my milk production will have increased. Wish me luck!!