Wednesday January 4, 2006
First, the good news…
She weighed in at 4 lbs 8.5 oz at yesterday’s appointment. She is just a hair shy of her birth weight now.
12-23-05: 4 lbs 8.7 oz
12-24-05: 4 lbs 6.1 oz
12-25-05: 4 lbs 2.8 oz
12-26-05: 4 lbs 1.4 oz
12-27-05: 4 lbs 3.2 oz
12-28-05: 4 lbs 4.6 oz
12-29-05: 4 lbs 4.8 oz
12-30-05: 4 lbs 4.6 oz
01-03-06: 4 lbs 8.5 oz
From now on, barring any problems, I can just go to the office for weigh-ins, but don’t have to do the hour appointment unless I want to see how much she is eating at a nursing session. (weighing her before and after a feeding to check the intake). Great news!
Now the “I guess I need to get some hair dye” news…
While I was waiting for Zach & Zane to return from the playground (we don’t have cell phones, so we have to just guess when to meet up) I was sitting in the waiting room in the Maternal Child unit. I can see the road from there and there wasn’t as much exposure to illness in that wing as the lobby. While I was there a lady was pacing with her cell phone, talking about somebody who was in labor. When she got off the phone, she noticed Zora asleep on my lap and did the normal ooohhhing and aaaahing over the baby. Then she added “it is so nice that mom lets grandma hold the baby for a while” 
I can not tell you how much I wanted to wake up Zora and start nursing her. I know she was just nervous and wasn’t thinking, but still….I am not that old!
Let’s think about something else now.
There are some interesting differences I have noticed between Zane’s newborn stage and Zora’s.
- Zora doesn’t go through nearly as many clothes. Zane threw up all. the. time. I went through 12-18 outfits a day and stacks of burp rags because of how much he threw up. (we eventually found out he had GERD). With Zora, she will still be in the same outfit in the evening that I put on her 8 hours before. I only need to change her when her diaper leaks. (can’t wait to get her in cloth…disposables always leak more for me, plus, the preemie dipes are still too big for her).
- Zora goes through a lot more receiving blankets. I was declaring before that I had way too many blankets. Zane hated being swaddled and many of the blankets were too small to do it anyway. Zora does better swaddled and we are actually using all of our blankets with her. I finally understand why people say you can’t have too many receiving blankets…a concept I thought was silly with Zane.
- I am actually sort of scared to sling Zora at this point. With Zane, I had him in a carrier a few days out of the hospital, but she is so small I am freaked out about slinging her at this point. Zane was so much stronger and bigger that you knew you were carrying a child when you had him. She is so light and small that I have to look down to see exactly where she is before I move around.
She is stirring, so I gotta go.
I just wanted to add: now that she is out of danger, I am really enjoying having such a tiny baby. I almost feel like I missed that stage with Zane. He looked several months old when he was born and I never really got the “look how tiny” giddiness that people have when they see little ones. Instead I got “he is only a week old?! Dang, he is big” Both are unique experiences and I feel so lucky to get both ends of the spectrum.
Congrats! She is beautiful!
Ugh, the grandma comment would have thrown me for a loop. To me that’s the same as asking a stranger whom you *assume* is pregnant “How far along are you?” Both times, guaranteed – you will end up with your foot in your mouth.
A few people used to think that my friend who nannied for me for awhile was my daughter’s mother, because they both have red hair. They’d see them around town during the week and see me with my daughter on the weekend and look all confused. Way to make assumptions, people!