5 Weeks

Holy crap, my baby is 5 weeks today and I’m 7 weeks from “allowed” running.

Monster*: Girlfriend is doing well! She had her one month appointment today and the Doctor is pleased with her growth. I was a nervous wreck that she wasn’t gaining enough weight. I’m the only person I know that has waited this long to pump (due to my Lactation Consultants recommendation) so I have no clue how much she’s actually eating. I was concerned that the 29th percentile wasn’t high enough but the Dr. said she’s fine since she pees and poops all day long. He said she just has a lean build, which is fine with me. Perhaps she has her Daddy’s genes: long and lean!

Brooke is doing well developmentally too! She’s mastered rolling over. Since she isn’t a fan of tummy time, it’s short lived and she flips to her back rather quickly. She rolled over her first time at 3 weeks and 4 days. She won’t let me tuck her head when I wrap her because she’s so curious and has such good head control that she wants to see everything. She’ll push up onto her chest/arms for 3-5 minutes and just look at everything. (God damn genius baby, if you ask me.) She’s mesmerized by lights and is now reaching for things she sees. It’s pretty amazing.

She legit smiled for the first time the other day (not gas smiled) and I melted. I got her to smile again a little later and was able to capture it. Watching your baby figure out how to smile is pretty amazing.

She’s has two really bad nights where she’s up starting at 200am with horrible gas, which means mommy is up and stays up (the perks of not pumping, amirite?). Oh look, a dreadfully exhausted mommy with a sleeping Monster on her chest. She can only get comfortable enough to sleep if she’s straight up when she’s that gassy. The pediatrician doesn’t think it’s a food allergy, so nothing for me to do on my end. Mylicon doesn’t really do shit and the Gripe Water occasionally works. We do bicycle kicks and tummy rubs to no avail. It really seems the only cure is comfort nursing and snuggles. Exhausting, but totally worth it.

But when she sleeps, she sleeps! Which is awesome. I can get about 7-8 hours of sleep myself if I’m able to catch her and feed her before she’s fully awake. “Dream Feeding” has been our lifesaver, or should I say “sleepsaver”. It is pretty incredible. At about 2am I wake up with full boobs and 9 out of 10 times she’s starting to stir. If I catch her in “early stirring” before she’s fully awake and hangry, I can nurse her for about 30 minutes and lay her back down without her actually waking up. Then I’m able to get another 2-3 hours before waking up because my boobs are full and dream feed her again before getting her to sleep until about 830-9am. Side note: I think it’s absolutely amazing that my body and her are so in sync. She seems to want to nurse as soon as I start to get uncomfortable.

Mommy: I love breastfeeding her. Way more than I ever thought I would. It’s become so rewarding and something I really cannot explain. She’s started doing this little giggle/coo/grunt combined with a huge, yet determined grin on her face before she latches. It’s everything to me. We’ve been trying different positions to nurse in just because I’m getting more comfortable with it all. To date, we’ve got about 3: the football hold, cross cradle and then the other day we were doing skin to skin and she was laying tummy to tummy with me on my back and she found her way to my nipple and latched right on. She seems to really like that position, so we’ve been working on it. She will also twist and contort herself into some pretty funky positions, but seems to like them (as seen here).

I’ve tried the whole “Cover up in public” bullshit and wow, eff that. She hates it, I hate it, it’s just awful. The only time I’ve tried to cover up is on the Flag Football field (for my nephew’s games) because it’s so damn cold out. I’m super fortunate that Kevin is crazy supportive about breastfeeding. He makes me feel really comfortable about it all. All of our family has been really supportive too. They’ve really made it all normal. Hell, I had a whole conversation with my Father In Law, while nursing Brooke uncovered last night. It was wonderful to not feel weird about it, but empowered.

SoMuchFattitude: My weight loss has stopped and I’m sitting at 260ish. They tell me that my swelling and weight aren’t a “real number” until about 12 weeks when all of my swelling is gone. So, we’ll see.

I got on my prepregnancy jeans the other day. It was nowhere near acceptable to leave the house wearing, as one false move and they surely would have ripped, but hey, I got them on. We’ll call that a victory.

We’ve been taking plenty of walks (as the weather permits) and I even jogged (against medical advice) for about a quarter of a mile before I thought my uterus was going to fall out of my incision. They clearly gave me the advice NOT to jog for a reason. Noted.

It’ll definitely be an adjustment getting used to jogging with a stroller. I’ve been taking the dog with us when we walk, but I’ve realized that when I start running it might need to be either him or her. The dog is terrible on a leash and I’m not sure how well it’ll go if I throw in running. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to starting C25K with a stroller and setting new PRs.

I’m thinking about hitting the scale only once a month and keeping my focus on just being healthy…instead of crazy. Or perhaps I’ll just do pictures. Either way, my goal is to keep my perspective healthy and not get caught up in the numbers game, which I love so much. While I know Brooke isn’t currently modeling behavior this complex after me, I don’t ever want her treating herself the way I’ve treated myself for so long. I want her relationship with food and exercise to be normal, healthy, and positive. So, I’ve got about 2 years to really fix my ish.

*Yes, we’ve taken to calling her Monster. It started as The Brookie Monster and has just kinda dropped to Monster.