9-24-10

Okay you know you're getting less sleep than you're used to when I had to go look at a calendar to see not only the date but the day of the week to write it on here for the title. I think the pregnancy brain I had early on in pregnancy is back because I can't remember anything. Okay enough about me now on to Oliver.

Oliver had his first check up yesterday in Dubuque with the pediatrician that worked on him when he was first born. Oliver grew 6 oz since he was weighed last on Monday and is now 6lbs 8oz. Now I definitely know he is going through a growth spurt and all this fortified breast milk we're giving him is going somewhere. Oliver has another blocked tear duct now on the right side, so we're doing eye drops again. He also had his blood drawn again to check a hemaglobin (red blood cell count) since it was low on Monday at 8.6. Now it is 9.1 so it is going up. We will have it checked again next week to make sure it is going up. We've found a good way for him to take his multivitamin with extra iron in it as well. Put the med in a like 40ml of his fortified breast milk when he is screaming his head off and he doesn't even know that it is in there because he's just so hungry. We then follow it up with another bottle of just plain breast milk. It seems to be working now and he doesn't spit it out and stain everything because it is black.

I don't think Shawn has ever had as clean of hands as he has lately from doing the dishes all the time from the bottles and bottles we go through and after all the diaper changes. I guess I knew babies went through a lot of diapers but we've already gone through 2 packages of them since we've been home! He's a pooping machine. Sometimes I wonder why they tell you you have to change his diaper before you feed him since he is screaming his head off in hunger and then we have to change it at least once but usually 2 times after he eats because he oozes poop for almost and hour after he eats it seems. We asked the doctor about the loose frequent stools because in Iowa City they attributed it to the morphine withdrawal but he's not on that anymore so who knows. At least his butt looks okay so we'll keep doing what we're doing.

Oliver is sleeping pretty well at night and last night we actually slept for 5 hours straight. It's the getting him to sleep part that is frustrating at times because he is so fussy when he is tired but can't fall asleep. He usually doesn't like to go to bed until around midnight when we're just exhausted from the day and want to sleep but he wants to be awake. Today is my first day alone with him being home because Shawn had to go back to work. So far, so good. We both woke up (he woke me up) at 7:45 and stayed awake until 10am when we finally both crashed on the couch together. And he's still asleep in his crib and it's after noon!