The three weeks after Tessa was born were probably the most difficult. She lost weight in the hospital, as most babies tend to do. At her first checkup, when she was two days old, she was still on the downside. Her weight was still decreasing at five days of age. She was doing a great job of nursing (actually the most successful out of all four), but she wasn't regaining her weight. When she was two and a half weeks old, and after about the fifth checkup, the pediatrician said that I would have to supplement with formula twice a day.
Sigh.
Never, ever, ever would I want my baby to go hungry. When Timmy was a few days old and he had been latched on me for every bit of eighteen hours in a twenty-four-hour period, I knew without a doubt he was hungry. I gave him a bottle of formula. Come to find out, because he was a little early, his sucking muscles were weak. But from the point that I gave him a bottle, he wouldn't nurse after that. A bottle is so much easier for a baby.
As disappointed as I was when I walked out of the doctor's office with Tessa, I wasn't going to go against her doctor's orders. I was going to give Tessa the formula...and I was probably going to give up breastfeeding as a result. I'd made it clear to Tom that I was not going to spend several months pumping breastmilk. It's twice the work...and really, there's only so long that I can handle feeling like a cow. And so I poured some of the formula into a bottle, sat down with Tessa in my arms, and began to feed her.
I've never heard or seen a baby being tortured, but I would imagine that it would sound much like the screams that Tessa gave every time I tried to feed her from the bottle. I would put the nipple in her mouth, she would scream. The formula would drip into her mouth, she would gag. I tried for every bit of twenty minutes, and then I breastfed her, which was what she wanted. And I tried this twice a day. Every single time I tried was met with the sounds of baby torture.
You can imagine my relief when she was back at her birthweight at a little over three weeks. Thank god the twice or thrice-weekly doctor's visits were over.
Those first few weeks were quite trying. Tessa made it very clear that I was the only one she wanted. If she heard my voice and I wasn't holding her, she would cry. She also had a little bit of reflux. She wanted to be upright all of the time. I realized very quickly that I had a choice. If I wanted to have any sort of sleep at all, I would have to hold her. The best place for her to be held upright? On the couch. I slept for ten weeks on the couch. Well, I got up three or four times each night to feed her, and fed her probably ten times during the day.
It took her four weeks to allow anyone else to hold her without raising a huge fuss.
In all fairness, though, I think she would have allowed Lesa and Lyn to hold her much sooner, had they been around to do so. Tom, Timmy, and the girls went to Indiana less than two weeks after Tessa was born. Tom and Timmy came back after four days (they'd gone for my nephew's graduation), but the girls stayed for another eight days. I can say that the time they were all gone was torture for me. Tessa was great, but I spent much of that time in tears. When Tom and Timmy came back, I bounced back to my semi-normal self, and once the girls returned, it was much easier.
Of course, I then spent the rest of the girls' summer break listening to the girls fight over who was going to hold Baby Tessa. All. The. Freaking. Time. But they were, and still are, great help.
Tessa is as cute as can be. She is smiling, squealing, and starting to coo. She also eats all the time. Okay, she's down to waking up only twice a night, but she's almost twelve weeks old. She's a very happy baby (as long as she's getting what she wants...me). I love that she lights up and smiles every time she sees me. In the middle of the night, she'll wake up and smile as soon as she sees me. And I smile back.
She's given us so much joy.
