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Sunday, September 13, 2015

Diapering

She was in newborn size at the hospital. The diapers had a yellow line that turns blue once wet. This was really great bc you could just open the blanket and look at the diaper. Since she was wearing a half shirt it also made it really easy to check.

She wore newborn diapers for about two weeks. Then she started size one. I can't believe how fast that happened. One day I just noticed that the newborn were getting hard to tape but the size one were too big.  I finished my supply of NB and moved up to one bc I did not want her to get pinched.

Now at 7 weeks, I think she is ready to move up again, but I am trying to finish out my supply of size one. I told my family who asked, to always buy me the next size, so I do have a nice supply of size 2 waiting for me.

She goes through many diapers in one day. It is crazy. She gets really fussy when wet. Sometimes it might only be 30 min. She will get really fussy and then I think to check the diaper and there is the blue line.

At first she would poop after almost every meal. I read that it is common for breast fed babies to have this reflex but not bottle fed. It was only a tiny amount and did not really have any aroma so it was easy to deal with.  As she got older, this started to change. She would a few times a day. There was more volume and it was thicker and more aromatic. Now she only goes once a day or every other day. It is really gross. It makes me nervous when she misses a day but the dr said it was normal. I even went online to check it out and looked at photos of baby poop to compare..........yes really I did that. It seems that they are only considered to be constipated when rocks come out.

My co workers had a shower for me last week and I got a diaper champ. I have been using it for almost a week and I have not filled it up yet, and I don't really smell anything. We will see how this progresses. I have two floors, so if I am downstairs I use the regular garbage. This is also something to see if I need to get another diaper pail for the downstairs or not. We have learned the importance of rolling the diaper up tight into a little ball.

My dh is getting better about doing diapers. At first he was really squeamish. He had never changed a diaper before. I did them exclusively for the first week while we got settled and then he started to take turns at my prompting. She moves around a lot and he had trouble getting the diaper to fit properly. He also has trouble mastering the concept of taking off the dirty one and quickly placing down a clean one down. He had a big accident with her pooping all over the changing table.... Now he is a pro and is really good about checking her stripe when grumpy and taking the initiative to change her.


Friday, September 11, 2015

Feeding

While in the hospital, I made it clear to every nurse about our situation so they would not harass me about not breast feeding.  I had always planned to try it out, but it's out of my control now and I am okay with it. We bond during feeding. She looks up at me and grabs my finger. I get to hold her tight. Taking care of a little baby is really hard and I can't imagine all the extra work it takes to breastfeed including having sore leaky boobs etc. I give those women credit.

They gave me 2 ounce similac premixed bottles. They were great. You just unscrew the top and put on a nipple. They were very strict about how much to feed her. They told me about one ounce and it had to be at least 3 hours. They said her stomach was very small so we had to be careful.

She would become fussy and cry and my gut told me she was hungry. The nurses would not let me feed her until three hours had passed. I was up all night until about midnight when the nurses took all the babies to get their stats. She returned the baby asleep in a tight swaddle. I asked her how she got her to sleep. She  told me that she likes to suck on her gloved finger, so I should get her a pacifier at home bc the hospital does not stock them.

She went to sleep and I expected her to wake me up but she never did. I woke up around 6:30  am and thought she was dead. I jumped up and freaked out. I went over and woke her up. She was fine and had a bottle. The nurse got mad at me and told me that I should have woken her up... ERGH well nobody said anything so how would I know.

When the sw arrived, the baby was screaming again and I thought she was hungry but it had not been 3 hours. The SW said she had never heard such a loud cry from a newborn. She agreed that the baby was very hungry and got me some food. She said that sometimes when they do not get a lot of prenatal care they crave nutrients once born and try to make up for lost time.

We saw the dr the next day and I told him what the nurse said. The dr told me that I could feed her every 2-3 hours and that I should not wake her up to feed at night.

I used the premixed bottles for a few weeks. They were so easy and helped me through the chaos of moving etc. At some point I knew I would have to start mixing powdered formula due to the cost. My dh coworkers got us a formula machine that is amazing. She started using the powder during the day, but I still  use the premixed at night and when I travel. I am still transitioning my whole life and I need to keep some things simple.

She quickly increased her intake of formula. I tried to figure out how much to feed her. Some sites said 2.5 oz per pound her day, and she was doing a little less than that. I do a combo of child led and parent let feeding. I feed her if she awakes or is fussy in the 2-3 hour window. The dr said you can't really hurt her by giving too much bc if you over feed the baby it will spit up. I increased her amount slowly and I tried to watch her to see if she was still hungry after feeding. She never spits up and she will make a yuk face when she is not hungry.

At 7 weeks old, she is up to about 5 oz per feeding. At her last Dr Apt for her one month checkup, she had gained 2 pounds. She went up from 8 to 10 which he said was great. I expressed my fear that she was not eating enough. He said all moms feel that way. Then I reminded him that I am still under supervision so I worry that I will get into trouble.



Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Clothing

When she was in the hospital she wore a T shirt (side snap kimono style) diaper and blanket. The SW had told me to bring an outfit to take her home in. I had a cute outfit that I bought for this day and when I put it on her I quickly realized that snaps are horrible. There were snaps all the way up and down her legs. I had no idea that babies wriggle around and kick their legs so much. Even at two days old this girl had leg power.

The next day, I went out and bought a bunch of T-shirts like she had in the hospital. OMG so much better.  For the first two weeks, she had the umbilical stump, so I liked having the half shirt to keep air flowing. The dr said not to do anything to the stump.

 After the stump fell off, I thought I would put her in a onesie since this was the one item that everyone mentioned over and over again. I put the first one on and it was tough to get it over her head without her getting really upset. It was really tough to get her arms into the holes since they were very rigid and I was worried about hurting her. It was so much more work than the simple side snap.

Then I was getting ready to leave the house and her diaper blew out the side and the onesie got messy on the bottom.  ERGHH so I just cut off the bottom and left the house bc I could not deal with trying to get it off and then put another one back on.  On that day, I hated onesies and did not really get the appeal. She went back to the side snap.

She continued to wear the side snap, diaper, blanket combo for the first 4 weeks. It was so easy. I could quickly open the blanket and check the diaper. Then since the T-shirts were side snap they did not have to go over her head. They were very easy to get onto her arms too. The shirts were white and I found that oxy clean totoally got out any formula/drool stain. I did also buy her a bunch of newborn sleepers with zippers. They were hard to find bc most sleepers had snaps. The sleepers were great and she wore them during the day if it was cold. They did not have to go over her head and they were quick to open and close.

After the first month, she started to get more active and the side snap would start to ride up. That is when the light bulb went off why the onesie is so great. I also was just out of my 30 day return period so I felt more comfortable taking the tags off of her clothes. I started to dress her in onseis and now I love them. She has a ton bc that is what everyone gives you. She has all sorts of colors and it has been really fun to "dress" her up.

If I ever got the chance again, I would still  start out with the side snap shirts/zipper sleepers until about 4 weeks old. She is so much bigger now and fits into 0-3 months clothes at 7 weeks old. She does not seem to mind getting dressed now, so I am wondering if her head is more solid and when she was younger maybe it was more sensitive. I also found that putting her arms into a onesie early on was very hard and it is much easier now, so maybe her arms are more flexible.

Friends and family continue to drop off clothing. I am starting to get larger sizes which is great. The larger sized clothing looks more like real clothing. There are dresses, shorts, etc. I had a huge bag of clothes so one day I sorted them all out and put them into her closet by size.



Monday, September 7, 2015

Moving into the new house


When she was about 2 weeks old, we moved into our new house. This was quite challenging with a small baby. Thankfully we have  some great friends who helped us move the smaller stuff so we could save money and only pay movers for the large furniture. We had lived in that house for 12 years and could not believe how much stuff we had packed into that house. This was a great chance to organize and purge.  It took us about two weeks to move enough stuff over before we got the movers. Towards the end it was difficult bc most of our stuff was in the new house but we could not sleep there since our furniture was still in the old house.

The day the movers came, we watched them pack up our stuff and then we all went over to the new house. There was a ground bee nest near the front walkway that we explicitly told the movers to avoid.  Everything was going great until one mover walked in and said he got stung. I went into first aid mode and got him some ice for the sting and some water. He asked for some benedryl. I thought nothing of it. After a few minutes he started to look a little pale and my gut told me that I should call 911. We were not really sure and debated about it. Then he says he's going to pass out and he is allergic to bees. WHAT? really, so you are allergic to bees, and never mention this until the last minute???  UGHH so we call 911 but he had been stung a good 5 min or more before we called, so it didn't look good.

I was holding the baby outside on the phone with the operator waiting for them to arrive. I could hear in the background that this guy was getting sick...........ergh thankfully not on my new floor bc someone found an empty gift bag. I told the operator and she said it was normal but that did not make me feel better. I started crying and freaking out.  She told me if he passes out I have to do CPR on him. I thought he was going to die.

They took about 10 min to get there. They finally got there and said that the benedyl probably saved his life. He was going to be okay and then they took him out on the stretcher.  His coworkers had no idea he had an allegery and he was a new hire.

It took me about a week to stop seeing his body passed out on my floor.