A New Year with New Challenges

January 1 was our little Dominic's due date, but he's already 5 days old!
This can double as my 40 week post I suppose!

6 days postpartum... what a journey it has been!

Things started out very smooth with D, but at his 3 day check-up, it appeared he had lost too much weight (11.6%, when anything over 10% is "concerning"). 

I have not been producing enough milk for him to thrive, and he was starting to become lethargic and a little bit jaundiced. The midwife recommended we supplement each feed for the next 24 hours with 20-30 mL of formula. She came back on Saturday (the next day) to check up, and D was back up to his discharge weight, which was a loss of only 8%. He had gained 80g overnight, and she said she would have been happy with 30g gain, so that's awesome. 

We have a check-up booked for January 4th to check his gain, and then I have an appointment with a lactation consultant on January 6th to see if there's anything further we can do. Hoping not to have to supplement with formula for much longer. At this point it's a regimen of feed, supplement, and then pump for 15 minutes. From waking baby to putting baby back down to sleep it's about 1.5 hours, and we have to do this every 2-3 hours. That means on for 1.5 hours, off for 0.5-1.5 hours. And somehow we're supposed to eat, sleep and take care of ourselves in that period. 

I failed miserably at this despite our best efforts. We both let food fall to the way-side for a few days there between lack of sleep, being over-whelmed, having visitors/visits. I lost all strength and could barely walk by the morning on New Years Day. 

Thankfully, we have lots of help! My mom came over to help out and force-feed me some food today to try get my strength back up. I just have to maintain this and hopefully that is doable! She and dad also cleaned house and took down our Christmas stuff! (YAY!)

Praying for strength through these next couple weeks. I know it will get better, and for now we're trying to savor the sweet moments

Big thank you as well to my mom friends who have been so encouraging and offered some great advice and help!

*update* we weight Dom at home last night and he came in at 7.9 lb. That is just a 7.9% loss from birth weight. If that's accurate, that's a good sign! We will see soon!

Photos for cuteness! <3 SO MUCH SLEEPING.