Friday, July 13, 2007

5 weeks old

Our little son is already 5 weeks old. I do not know where all this time has gone.

He is asleep now and we started some sort of routine to help us all keep our sanity. By 6pm I am breastfeeding and he is hungrily eating away at both boobs, then Jason gets the baby bath ready and places it in the living room.

We bath him and he is enjoys this, as he looks around wide eyed and does not snicker or cry and just enjoys the warm water on his little body.

We have noticed he is gaining more weight and his little legs are becoming robust. Today we weighed him at 4.2kg so he is gaing about 200 to 230grams a week which is quite good.

However for a time there we were panicking about his weight gain as he had lost more than 10% of weight coming out of hospital. He weighed 3.3 kg when we left hospital and he was born with 3.82 kg so now he has past his birth weight and growing steadily.

I love him to bits and love to kiss his little face, he always wrinkles his eyes when I kiss him and I feel he does not like it. But other times he looks at me and when I look at him he looks away. He is very observant and looks always is looking everywhere, on the ceiling, at the lights, at the television at my grandmothers Sara’s painting of Bondi, and the Indian cushions. He loves to look at the painting of Bondi when I breastfeed him, my grandmother would have been so pleased.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

the doctors visit

I took him to the doctors, and for the first time ventured outside with him and only him. I put him in the Baby Bjorn and walked to Clovelly road to the Clovelly Medical Center. The Doctor weighed him and told me he had put on 700 or so grams since he was weighed last. She was happy with that and told me he was on the 50% percentile line for weight. So he is average weight. I showed her the pimples he has on his face and she said they are due to hormones as from my breastmilk he is absorbing my hormones. He looks like a pimply little boy. She checked his temperature with baby thermometer in his ears, and checked his tounge, he still has oral thrush so she made a new prescription so I could buy drops for his thrush. She checked his ears as I mentioned to her that sometimes he touches them and she said there was nothing wrong with them just hairy little ears. She also prescribed Motilium to me a drug used to increase breast milk originally recommened to me by the lactation consultant Anne Kohn last Saturday.

Took him to see el Abuelo Ruben at the War Vet Nursing home. My grandfathers face lit up when he saw us and I walked in the room where he was playing Bingo with the lady from Peru who looks after him and announced “Abuelo aca tenes a tu vis-nieto, ahora sos un vis abuelo, tuve un nenito”. He was over the moon and I did not expect much of a reaction from him. He was saying how happy he was, how beautiful Joaquin was, how special and he touched his little feet and his hands and held him while he was in his chair. My grandfather reached out fo Joaquin and told me “ I did not think I was ever going to experience happiness again”. This broke my heart. Jason took photos and a video. We stayed and watched my grandfather have dinner, as Maria fed him. He had pork and rice for dinner. My grandfather still thinks my grandmother Sara is alive and asked Que dijo la abuela cuando lo vio, te dijo que le cortes el pelo”. Joaquin slept throughout the visit but I woke him up at 5pm so he could feed and then he was alert and looking at el abuelo and we took some good photos with them both. I took a photo with both their hands, different generations. It is unbelievable to think I have a son.

On the way home we stopped at a take-away shop and I ran in and got two chicken burgers called“hot mamma” as they are a fake Oporto burgers with chili sauce but they were delicious with two chicken fillets. We ate them in the car while Joaquin slept and that to us is the new definition of being new parents –Eat when and where you can--.

He was asleep when we got home and we let him sleep and then when he woke at 10.30pm I fed him, and gave him a top up of formula (60mls) and also pumped. I was able to pump 70mls and Jason was very happy. Then I woke up at 3.30am to feed him and then 7.30am (Friday morning).

To increase my milk supply I started taking tablets Motilium at 10pm and took one every 6 hours, then at 7am and 3.30pm (Friday 13th) as suggested by lactation consultant. Lets see what happens, if my supply increases!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

one month old

JoaquĆ­n our beautiful little son is over a month old. He is our little sun that shines brightly every day.

Today is Wednesday the 11th of July and I can not believe that he is over a month old and growing well.

The truth is it has been tough being a new mother and I am sure I can vouch for Jason being a new father.

There is so much to learn and so much patience that is needed and of course there is the lack of sleep that keeps everyone on their toes. However as time is passing I do find it slightly easier each time and I love him more and more each day. I kiss his cheeks and his nose and face and he looks away with his big eyes. Jason says he may have green eyes but he was born with blue grey eyes and I thought maybe he might have my father’s grey blue eyes.

We are starting to get in some sort of routine but truthfully babies do not know what time or day it is, they are just hungry and very tired.

This is roughly how are days and nights are:


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