He ain't heavy, he's my baby

Everyone warns you that the first few weeks of parenthood are a haze of crying and soothing and sleepless nights. But I suppose in some ways this is a sort of truth that must be lived to be understood. Because everyone also tells you that the pain of childbirth is too much to bear, but I didn't feel that way. It was incredibly intense, but it was never too much for me. But this not sleeping, constantly pumping milk, feeding, soothing only to get up and do it all over again? whew. That is a bit too much for me.

On one hand I suppose I can't complain too loudly. It isn't as though we have a kid who is inconsolable. Its just that the only way to console him is to hold him or let him sleep laying on you, and that means that I can only doze lightly myself.

But the Sears & Sears folks say all this holding is really good for babies, especially preemies. Sears & Sears have a library of parenting books that we are rapidly acquiring, including "The Pregnancy Book," "The Birth Book" and the biblically sized "The Baby Book." I also read "The Preemie Book" from the Prentice Library while in the NICU. I find their stuff easy to read, comforting, informative and fair. In other words, if they say it, its pretty much gospel to me until proven otherwise. So they say holding is great for a preemie because it helps "organize" their immature internal systems, improves breathing and heart rates, helps temperature regulation etc.

So it is nice to know that all this holding is actually doing something.

We took him to his first pediatrician appointment the Tuesday after we left the NICU, so about 48 hours after we were discharged. At that point he was 5 lbs 9 oz, which was about 4 oz over what he weighed when he left the NICU. They say that they hope for growth of about 1 oz per day, so he was putting on a hearty 2 oz per day. Go little man.

Well on monday of this week we became concerned that maybe his circumcision site wasnt healing up the way it was supposed to. The nurse in NICU had told us probably 4 days to heal, and at his first peds appointment the doctor we saw (Dr Ellwell) said 7 days to being totally healed. It wasn't totally healed and it looked a little funny, so we called in and spoke with Dr Andy. He told us to come in for our peace of mind and he'd look at it. Turns out everything is fine, just normal healing that can sometimes take a little longer because of being snugged up in a diaper all the time.

But Dr Andy also put Liam on the scale. He weighed a healthy 6 lbs 4 oz! Go little man!! That means he put on 11 oz in the 6 days since he had last been weighed, so he was continuing his trend of adding about 2 oz per day.

If he had been able to stay inside until his due date, most of what he'd be doing right now is packing on the fat to help him regulate his temperature and whatnot. So I was relieved and encouraged that all the careful loving we have been doing for him at home seems to be providing him a good environment to do the tough work of growing.

Go buddy go. Small but mighty, and growing.