True Life: I'm a [Mommy] Blogger

A few weeks ago I linked-up my general/catch-all blog for the "True Life: I'm a General Blogger" link-up that Tara and Mrs Monologues were hosting... this week they're hosting a "True Life: I'm a Mommy Blogger" link-up!

For all the newbies from the link-up, welcome!

I'm Rachel, we live in northern Illinois and I am a new mommy to 6 and a half month old Jaydran Alexander (we call him Jay for short), born on February 4, 2011.

August 14, at his 1st county fair!

My son's name is quite unique (our last name is Johnson, so we felt he needed a unique 1st name since there's a million and one Johnsons in our town!) and if you do a Google search you'll find that he's the only one with that name too! The story behind it is that my husband came up with it. He writes sci-fi as a hobby (and hopefully professionally someday!) and when he played baseball as a kid, one of the boys on his team had a sister named Jaydra. Liking the unique-ness of the name, he decided to make Jaydran the male version of it and use it for his writings. And yes, it's also the name of his World of Warcraft character, which caused me to initially veto the name but it grew on me and it seems to fit Jay as well, as he's quite an awesome little boy!

So this is my mommy/personal blog, as I chronicled our journey of trying to have a baby, my pregnancy and our adventures of being a family!

Having dealt with quite a bit so far (gestational diabetes, "failure to thrive" and eating troubles, breastfeeding woes, hydrophrenosis and a UVJ Obstruction requiring eventual surgery), I hope that by sharing my experiences and struggles I might be able to help other moms experiencing what I have and give them answers and insight to things they might be wondering (I know I tend to Google a lot when I'm looking for an answer or someone who's been there, done that and can offer insight on what I can expect).

Anyways, Jay is a special little guy who's had quite a rough start in life.

He LOVES Elmo!

Before he was born they were concerned about his femurs being a little a on the short side and his left kidney appeared to be enlarged. Due to a lack of growth between weeks 30 and 37 they decided to induce me at 37weeks, 5 days so he was a few weeks early. To be honest, labor was pretty easy - took just under 9 hours and was natural (but with a dose of dilauted to help with the back labor) and I honestly didn't feel much of anything until the last few hours, not to mention I went from 7-10cm dilated in about 10 minutes and the last half hour just flew by (you can read his full birth story here). His kidney was still enlarged though so they diagnosed him with hydronephrosis and had us start seeing a local urologist.

We also tried breastfeeding for the 1st few weeks however instead of gaining weight he lost weight! Then he gained a little back but not much so the doctor had us spend a week in the hospital while we tried to figure out why kiddo wasn't eating enough to grow. I found out at my 6 week post-partum check-up that they failed to mention to us that there was a knot in the umbilical cord, which would explain his eating problem - he got used to eating just enough to survive and his stomach never got big enough to take in more! Ever since the week in the hospital with him hooked up to a feeding tube to stretch his stomach out he's been quite the eater now, eating several full bottles a day, 2 servings of rice cereal for breakfast and veggies and fruits for dinner (he hates peas though, lol...).

He had a little too much fun
with his peaches!

As far as his enlarged kidney... the local urologist sent us up to the children's hospital in Madison for further testing where we learned that the blockage is at his bladder and not up at the kidney like we initially thought but that there is no reflux which is good. They referred us to a pediatric urology specialist at the children's hospital up there who has us coming up there every 3-4 months to check on it, saying that it appears to be a UVJ ureter obstruction. He'll most likely need to have surgery by the time he's 2 to correct it though, as his left ureter tube is pinched off at the bladder and they'll go in, take it off, snip it and reattach it to the bladder.

The idea of my baby having surgery so young is something I try not to think about, as I don't want to worry about it until it's time, however the specialist was very comforting and made me feel confident about it, saying he's done it plenty of times and has always been successful so far. I am not too thrilled though that he'll have a surgery scar though. Not gonna lie, with his week long stay in the hospital and all the testing they've done on his kidney, it's been really hard having to watch them do all this stuff to him... fortunately he's so little he probably won't remember it when he's older, although it wouldn't surprise me if it's what causes his monthly night terrors (he's had 1 a month since he was born, where he freaks out in his sleep for several minutes and won't wake up out of it).

Chillin' with daddy!

My hubby works a lot (he has both a day job as an inventory & purchasing manager for a Verizon authorized retailer and works 3rd shift as a part-time UPS supervisor - we're hoping he goes full-time there soon though so he can quit the day job) leaving me to take care of Jay most of the time during the week. I do work part-time though at The Children's Place which is pretty nice as I get 25% off Jay's clothes (and sometimes 40% when they do employee appreciation weekends!) on top of whatever the sale price is - he is quite the well dressed little guy! Fortunately my parents don't live too far from us so my mom babysits Jay when hubby and I both have work so we don't we have to worry about daycare.We also have a domestic Egyptian Mau kitty named Tiger and she will be 3 years old in October and we just bought and moved into our first house back in April! Needless to say, it's been quite a year for us!

Showing off his shades!

For now, Jay is our only child and we've discussed it and decided that we'll most likely wait until after his kidney/ureter issue is resolved before we decide to try for another (so probably when he's close to 3). Ultimately we'd like to have at least 1 more kid and maybe a 3rd (I love Jay despite my lack of experience with little boys however I would like to have a little girl too).

Jay is quite the well-behaved baby though, only really crying when his mouth hurts (due to teething - he currently has both his bottom front teeth) or he's hungry or overly tired - he behaves very well in public! He loves Elmo and anything with Elmo's face on it, he enjoys staring at pictures and playing in his baby walker. He is also VERY curious about electronics such as smartphones, computers, the remote control and the PS3 controllers! He doesn't crawl yet, but is very close (he drags/scoots himself across the floor instead!) and he does like to roll EVERYWHERE! His bedroom is being painted to look like world 1-1 from Super Mario Bros and he has various Mario Bros and Star Wars collectibles throughout his room!

 And some more pictures of Baby Jay:

One of his 1st pics, 6lbs 7oz, 19inches long & a full head of hair!

One of my favorite pics - Jay & daddy

 

He was soooo little!!

My poor baby with his feeding tube in,
pumping his tummy full of milkies

Being all cute during our move from
a 1 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house!

Our little family (minus Tiger our kitty!)

Just not Jay's day

So today we had Jay's weight follow-up appointment to see if he had gained anymore weight this week as on Monday his 10 day weight gain wasn't quite what the doctor would have liked it to have been.

Well... he LOST weight!

At the appointment Monday, with his clothes on, he weighed 6lbs, 9oz, today he is 6lbs, 7oz!

><

The doctor said he doesn't look or seem dehydrated, his color is good, and he's pooping and peeing as much as he should so it's not like he's starving, but for some reason he's not gaining weight.

He told us to get some formula and 4oz bottles and start supplementing over the weekend, doing 5 minutes of breastmilk if we want and then giving Jay a bottle of formula a minimum of every 3 hours in hopes he'll gain some weight over the weekend as we have another follow-up on Monday morning. If he doesn't gain any back and then some we'll have look into there maybe being another reason why he's not gaining any weight.

We're thinking it might just be that my milk production is low - Jay nurses plenty, that's for sure, sometimes as often as every hour or more during the morning hours! But we notice it seems to pass through him real quickly (like before he's even done eating) and I've noticed the past few days my boobs don't seem as "full" as they were...

Maybe switching to formula though will help him sleep better at night (and maybe even in the bassinet!) if he's getting a full tummy - I know it'll help me a little as I won't feel so "on my own" when it comes to feeding, as others will be able to feed him now too.

My mom bought him some Nuk brand bottles, as I had tried The 1st Years Breastflow ones last night and Jay didn't seem to take to it well - his binky is by Nuk though and their bottles have the same nipple as his binky so that seemed to go a little better although he only ate a little over an ounce...

Poor Little Man - just isn't his day today, with the bad news from the doctor about his weight to having to switch to formula... on top of it, when we got home from shopping I went to change his diapey and well, in the process he peed all over himself again and this time he got some in his face! Poor guy... he had the initial shock of it hitting his face before he started freaking out... I did a quick "mop up" of him and the changing table before taking him to the bathroom for a spongebath and hair wash, which he wasn't happy about either! Daddy came home though and he's been snuggling with him ever since.

2nd week thoughts

In roughly 7 hours Jay will be 2 weeks old.

So glad this week is finally over - it started out good, but got boring real quick as plans were tenatively made but then canceled and yeah... didn't help that while it was supposed to hit 50 today, it was really damp and rainy-looking out so I didn't get out to take that much needed walk, pushing Jay in the stroller, on the nearby walking path.

I gotta say, this week turned a bit boring during the daytime. I'm looking forward to hubby being around a little more next week, as he scheduled his vacation at UPS for the week after Jay's due date - these last 2 weeks, being the one mainly taking care of Jay, has been rough.

I really want to make a better effort at getting him to sleep by himself, preferably in the bassinet. Hubby doesn't mind him co-sleeping with us for now (currently he often sleeps curled up on my chest with me laying on my back, slightly propped up), but once mommy has her 6 week post-partum check up and is cleared for "stuff", well, kiddo needs to give mommy and daddy their space in bed.

I also really would prefer to supplement his feedings with formula too.

Tomorrow we have Jay's weight follow-up appointment at the doctor's office... one of the things about breastfeeding that is annoying is that I have no clue how much he's actually eating, whereas with a bottle you can know how many ounces kiddo is getting. I also *hate* how I'm the only one that can feed him while exclusively breastfeeding. Yes, I can pump, and I have, but again, I have no idea how much he's actually eating and so who knows if I'm pumping enough! I can get anywhere from 1-3oz per pump session... but how much does that feed him? I would really like for hubby to be help out with feeding him - when he was getting up with Jay in the middle of the night to calm him, he'd always end up waking me up anyway just to feed him. I've also read that formula doesn't digest as quickly as breastmilk too, causing there to be more time between feedings, which if logic serves correct, means he'd sleep a little longer between nighttime feedings and mommy and daddy would be able to get a little more sleep. Who knows, maybe he'd be able to sleep alone a little longer too if he's not waking up so often for food.

I figure it's worth a try.

I don't mind breastfeeding him when we're at home here during the day or in the evening, etc, but it would be nice to get a break and be able to have a little time to myself, not having to drop what I'm doing to give him a boob because daddy or whoever is over helping me out can't feed him.

We have a smaller can of Enfamil premium newborn formula that the hospital gave us - I figured I'd try it out, at least see how he takes to it, as I'm pretty sure the doc is going to tell us to supplement tomorrow anyway.

To be honest, I wasn't originally planning on ever breastfeeding my kids, as neither my sister or I were breastfeed - in our house, formula was the norm. Hubby is the opposite though - in his family breastfeeding was the norm so he just figured that would be something we would be doing. I figured I'd give it a shot, especially seeing the price of some formula brands, knowing it could save us money. But it's been 2 weeks and I've stuck it out like everyone suggests and I really feel like for my own sanity and for the sake of my nipples we NEED to supplement (some nights Jay can sleep a good 3-4 hours straight, others, like last night, he wakes up every hour wanting food).