Catching Up

I was contemplating the other day what, if anything else, worth mentioning happened during our first week as a "new" family that you might find intriguing or interesting to read. To be honest, I'm not sure much of what went on, besides that which I already mentioned (and can't remember right at this moment, incidentally, but that's beside the point!) would be in the "news you can use" or interesting category except to us, but here are a few highlights nevertheless:

• Dr. Newman, Nick's pediatrician, came to visit and check him out on Memorial Day for the first time. They seemed to get along swimmingly! :)
• We had a visit with Doug and Diane, friends of ours, on Memorial Day. They brought flowers, a beautiful pearl bracelet for me and, after shuttling Mark home for additional clothes and what not, ice cream for me since I was leary of what would be served by the cafeteria!
• We had a visit from Mark's teacher, Dr. Thompson, who checked little Nicholas out and told Mark he'd done an awesome job with his adjustment on Tuesday!
• We took our first ride in the car with Auntie Cassie at the helm to return home on Wednesday afternoon.
• On Thursday, Grandma Rocco came to take care of Mommy and spoil Nicholas!
  

Despite the list being less than "thrilling" for most, it was quite a wonderful first week for us. I think the best part of it was when we were in the hospital, to be honest. It was so nice to have Mark and Nicholas all to myself...except when we had a few visitors here and there to spice things up. I have to admit that it was hard to say goodbye to all of that...especially since Mark would be going to school the very next day. I admit it actually made me cry when he had to leave that morning...I was just so sad that we were back to "normal" life with all its committments.

We did have a couple of other happenings which I've reserved to talk about currently since they are more in the newsworthy area. First, we're having some issues with breastfeeding so poor Nicholas lost a little more weight than they would have liked a little more quickly than they would have liked and he hasn't gained it back as quickly as they would have liked. So, we're in the process of supplementing with formula (much to my chagrin...) and pursuing a bunch of different avenues to up my milk production including taking reglan (a prescription drug that has helped other women be more "milky"), fenugreek (an herbal supplement with the same goal) and I am pumping regularly with a hospital grade pump. I am stubborn if nothing else and sooner or later my milk supply will come in at a level that meets little Nicholas' needs, I hope. If not, well, it isn't the end of the world, but it will be extraordinarily sad for me since this is one of the parts of being a mommy I was really looking forward to. We'll keep you posted on Nick's progress with weight gain...at last weigh-in on Friday, he was 6 pounds 6 ounces - 6 ounces short of his birth weight. He's in the 5th percentile right now (i.e., there are 5 kids out of every hundred out there who weigh less than he at his age). Length-wise, he's pretty average - 20.75 inches which puts him in the 50th percentile.

The other bit of excitement is about as fun as that one. My C-Section incision became infected. We're not sure how, but these things do happen. Thankfully, we caught it early enough that the doctor didn't have to re-open the incision, but the treatment still hasn't been what I would call pleasant. I'll spare you the details and just let you know that I am improving daily and should be out of the woods, hopefully, by the end of this week. We'd appreciate your prayers both for my becoming a better "cow" and healing...

One final thing before I rush off. We did have a "first" yesterday evening. We took Nicholas out for a little walk in his stroller around our community. He seemed to enjoy it....good thing since it is a nightly activity around here!

Have a great week!