1-Week Old Today

...and I forgot to take a picture. OK, I did take one of Zion holding Elias. It's really cute. It's still in my camera. But here's some cute for you:

Eva seemed to double in cuteness while I was in the hospital.



And double in size. She still can't compete with Elias though, bigger and cuter.

All of our cats seem to realize there are good cuddles to be had when one of us settles down with a baby. It's always been that way.

Things are going pretty well with the little guy. He sleeps pretty well at night. Sleeps so well he will not wake up for anything when he's not ready. This does not bode well for when he starts school (he's going to need like 5 alarm clocks) but for now it's hard to get him to gain weight when he misses what could be 2 or 3 nursings. I would try to make up for them during the day but he won't have it. He also has a bad latch. Bad latch = not getting as much milk per nursing and a TON of pain for me. I have not had such a hard time with this with any of my kids. There's always a period of soreness and with Zion a lot of frustration because she didn't much care for the work nursing took and got fed up but nothing like this wretchedness. Sore, bruised, bleeding, crying, massive amount of pain that doesn't go all the way away in between nursings.

He has lost a lot of weight, down to just about 9 pounds and hasn't started gaining yet. *sigh* He is alert when he is awake, has the right amount of pees and poos and all that. Zion did this. Gideon lost more than average but bounced back quickly. If only we could get in some more nursings and if he was better at latching on so he could get more for his effort (calories in needs to be more than calories out and all that)...

His jaundice is better though. We had to have him at the doctors on Tuesday for a recheck and back again today. The doctor didn't feel the need to retest him since his skin had cleared up enough. Small victories though I feel frustrated that I've had four babies and I've yet to just be able to rest and recover. Something always happens that keeps us running back and forth to the doctors almost every day.

Even today after we got back from Elias' doctor appointment and grabbed some lunch Rob had to take Zion to the walk-in clinic. When she was with my sister (all the kids got to stay with Jamie for a few days when we came home, it was awesome for us and them) she pulled a door over her toe and flipped the nail back and took off some skin. This morning she started fussing about it big time in a new way so I knew something was up. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be broken but likely some infection was starting to set in so she's on antibiotics now and seems to feel better already.

Most likely it's just the baby blues talkin' but I'd so wished that this pregnancy and delivery and recovery would be free of complications and I'd just be able to enjoy. I guess that sort of thing wasn't meant for me. Tomorrow is Saturday. Perhaps we can stay out of the doctor's office for a day.

On a different note, Gabe realized that it was July today. He remembered that we set off fireworks on the Fourth. It was unexpected. Suddenly I realized that I have a child old enough to remember holiday traditions like that. It's going to get harder to skip these things when we just don't feel like it. So tomorrow we'll head out for diapers (those newborns sure go through 'em) and fireworks. Small ones. Little flowers and bees and things. Remember those?

Oh dear, I hear a baby over the monitor. Gotta go.