Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Life since Ben has been home has been a little hectic.  I think he is really a pretty good baby, he doesn't have too many fussy periods and he is usually pretty easy to get calmed down. He wants to be held 24/7, which is hard in the middle of the night when I need to sleep. When he's awake he doesn't mind doing tummy time and stuff like that, but when he's sleeping he just wants to be held!  The first night he was home was awesome, he'd wake up and I'd feed him and then lay him down in his bassinet and he'd go right back to sleep! The second night I was up with him until 4 a.m. because he wouldn't lie down, he'd fall asleep for like 5 minutes and then wake up crying. I felt like he was over tired, too much stimulation that day maybe. So I finally let him sleep on my chest on the couch for 1.5 hours, he woke up to eat, then we went back to sleep the same way for 1.5 hours. Thankfully I got a one hour nap that day.  But I'm here to tell you that 4 ...

Today Ben is coming home! Today also my grandma went home to be with Jesus.  I was just thinking yesterday about Passover, and I know it's not the same but just how blessed we are that Benjamin was "passed over" by all the awful things that could have happened during his hospitalization. And the Easter holiday is a good reminder of the hope that we have, and that death is not the end.  It's a mix of joy and sadness on this day. Ben is nursing 50 percent of the time and doing great. He is getting to be more like a normal newborn in that he actually wakes up and cries when he is hungry. I am nursing on demand, which is usually about every 1.5 to two hours. He doesn't have too be supplemented after we nurse which is awesome. Also, all my pumping has given me a small freezer stash of about 2 days worth of breast milk! Pretty darn exciting. :) He weighs 6 lbs 14 ounces. He seems soooo huge to me, which I know sounds crazy but really. He is so big! I think we are rea...

You have no disposable diapers in the house on a day that the kids go to preschool? Send your two year old in underwear of course! Shockingly, she had no accidents. So I've continued sending her in underwear. Yeah miss M!  We haven't had any accidents at home since then either. Now that I mentioned it I'm sure we will though. I am nursing Ben four times a day, which means I basically live at the hospital and nothing is getting done at home.  Yesterday was our first day doing that and he gained .2 ounces for the day. Awesome right? Usually he gains about an ounce or so a day, but at least he's not losing anything! The hardest part of nursing is keeping him awake. In the mornings he will only take one side, which I have no idea how that is enough for him but come hell or high water I can't get him to take the other. At noon today when I fed him I finally got him to take the second side for a few minutes and then he fell asleep. He had pooped so I changed his diape...

Well when they weighed Ben after my last post he ended up losing 20 grams (2/3 oz) for the day. Kind of a bummer. But! This morning I asked if we could do a before/after weight on Ben. He got 28 ccs, then I pumped another 20 ccs. So that is a total of 48 ccs, and a full feed is 55 ccs. And I had also just pumped 2 hours before that (he eats 55 every 3 hours). I'd never be able to pump 48 ccs every 2 hours, so somehow he does get out milk that I can't access with the pump for whatever reason. He has gone 4 days with no alarms also so that is great! Yesterday was his 8 week birthday, tomorrow he will be two months old. The C monster was asking yesterday about swimming lessons. I told him we might take them again, but probably not for a while. Then he asked "Will we take them when we go see our (bio dad)?" I don't even know what made him draw that connection.  We have no contact agreement with bio dad, he did not want one even though we offered to at least send h...

Well this morning Ben did such a good job nursing that they aren't supplementing him at all. I tried to offer him a bottle, he took literally 5 ccs and went right back to sleep, hasn't woken up since. It is 1.5 hours until his next care time (when he is "supposed" to eat again) and I'm sitting on pins and needless waiting for him to wake up starving! The more I read the more I think my problem is not so much supply as it is time with baby at breast. Or lack thereof.  Yeah I know you guys have been saying that all along...I finally think you are right. :) Ben was apparently very anemic, so they have put a port in his thigh and inject a daily dose of epogen to help get his red blood cell count up.  they will do this for ten days. They said this should give him more energy to help with his feedings. I think if he doesn't get the feeding thing down soon I might see if I can room in here at the hospital and nurse on demand. I don't know if they w...

Once again I am just so sorry to be writing about this so much. Really it is for me to process and gather my thoughts. I find I have too much time to sit and think about things (ironic, right?) but not much time or ability to do anything about them.  I am living in the microcosm of my own small world right now and it is rather strange. So. We have been able to do two before/after weights for Ben when he nurses.  He gained 12 ccs one time and 14 ccs one time.  So, between 1/3 and 1/2 an ounce. I had approximately 20 ccs available (in one breast) at that time. He is getting the "easy" milk and I'm trying to help him out as much as I can by squeezing it down for him.  But then he just gives up. Which is fine, I know it is hard work for him. So if he goes home on breast milk plus 2 bottles of formula a day, I'm trying to figure out how to make this work. I know he won't be able to nurse exclusively; and even if he could I'd still have at least 2 feedings a day...

My husband and I had this brilliant plan that before the baby was born we would spend a night at a hotel and his mom would watch the kids. She was going to watch then when I had the baby, so it would be kind of a test run for her and one last break for us. Well obviously we missed the boat on that one since Mr. Ben decided to come 11 weeks early. But we somehow conned Brian's dad to watch the kids for us for a whole night, and since Ben is still in the hospital it was kind of our last chance to do something like that for a while. So Saturday we rented a really nice hotel room, went and saw a movie, AND went out for dinner. I don't think we have had a date since our trip to Florida in November (unless you count going to the NICU together as a date) so it was really really nice. Of course our "baby moon" began with a visit to the NICU, and we had to schedule around pumping, and I still had to wake up in the night to pump. But it was nice to get away for a little whi...