Our Faith Hope and Love Journey: 2 weeks

It has been 2 weeks since Ben was born, 12 days since we have been home and things have been good. We have had a couple bumps along the way with feedings, but we seem to be back on track now. When we left the hospital it seemed we were finally getting the hang of breastfeeding, but then things quickly went south. He refused to latch on despite the fact that he was showing obvious signs of being hungry. He would scream and yell and fight every second we attempted to feed him. He was not peeing enough and when we brought him to the pediatrician after being home for a couple days he had lost over a pound. Our pediatrician had no real advice for us other than we needed to get him to eat more (unfortunately our appointment was with one of the doctors in the practice that we don't particularly love). Luckily, there are some great lactation consultants at our hospital that we were able meet with and we came up with a game plan that Bennett took to with no problem. We bulked up his breast feedings with a tube and followed each breast feeding with an additional 1-2 ounce bottle and I pumped after every feeding to try and increase my milk supply. By our follow up appointment with the pediatrician 3 days later, he had gained almost a pound. Success!

We have had the additional complication with the fact that right after Ben was born, my blood pressure jumped up and hasn't really come down. I have been monitoring it since being home and went for a follow up with my midwife last Friday. At that point, she said that while my BP is high, its not high enough to medicate without in effect making it too low and the game plan was just to continue monitoring. Through the early part of this week my BP readings kept increasing and it became harder to get them back down. So, yesterday I was started on medication in hopes that we can get it under control until my body gets back into what it is supposed to be doing. I have also had a headache for most of the past 2 weeks that I cannot seem to shake. It might be related to high BP, or the weather, or tension, or hormones, or a million other reasons. Hopefully it will all sort itself out soon! (Just more proof that my body truly does not deal well with anything having to do with pregnancy and having babies!)

But on a more positive note, our boys are amazing! Charlie LOVES Ben like crazy and has been so good with him. He obviously has his typical 3 year old-pay-attention-to-me moments, but they are mild. He wants to help and be involved. He is infatuated with "petting" Ben's head and giving him kisses. He did manage to catch a handful of spit up earlier as he reached out to touch Ben's face while daddy was burping him. He didn't quite know what to do and after making a disgusted face, he wiped it on daddy's arm. If only we had the video camera out, we could have been the next million dollar winners on America's Funniest Home Videos!

Vince's parents have been living with us for the past couple months and have been a huge help with everything the past 2 weeks. They leave on Saturday for their new house in Florida. They are sure to be missed - especially by Charlie who has loved having them around every day. Just gives us one more reason to plan trips to the Sunshine State though!