Addie-tude!

It's almost been 2 weeks since Addie was born. Time is flying by! We went to our first check up today. She's weighing in at 9 lbs. 8 oz. and is 21 1/2 inches long. So, she obviously growing!

This time around has been vastly different from our experience with Lexi. When we brought Lexi home, we literally had an Excel spreadsheet for all of her meds and she projectile vomited at least 4 of the 8 feeds we gave her (and did so for 18 months). What a special time. Allen was mentioning how he doesn't fear the "HELP!" call at 2 a.m. with Addie. I remember how I would call out for his help and sometimes he'd wake up, sometimes he wouldn't. One long night, I was once again cleaning up barf and I remember just sitting down after I was done and crying and crying and crying. Allen hadn't heard me and it was, what felt like, the umpteenth time I'd cleaned up that night. Because we had spent a week in the hospital before Lexi was even born, Allen had used all of his time off and didn't stay home at all after Lexi came home. Oh, it was really hard sometimes.

Little Addie, bless her little heart (or stomach), keeps her feeds down, rarely spits-up (but when she does, it's almost everything she's had - there's no doing stuff half-way for this one), eats every 3 hours and so far (now, if tonight she's up I'm going to curse even mentioning this) goes right back down after our middle of the night feeds. Her first night, she was up from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. (oh, and Lexi had to join the fray, too, so I was running from the newborn to the 2 year old in the night). The next day, we (meaning, my mom while I got a good 3 hour nap) kept Addie up for some of the day. The next night, she got up, ate, and went quietly back to sleep. Now, she has a couple of hours of quiet wakefulness during the day and has maintained her solid night-time sleepiness.

We got the ok from dr. today to let her sleep thru one feed at night, too. She's already done that once and her weight gain has been good so dr. said to let the sleeping baby lie. How nice! Again, Lexi was so close to going back into the hospital for failure to thrive that we had to feed her every 3 hours for at least the first month she was home - it might have been two.

We've had one little bump in the road with feeding when she started crying during her feeds, wouldn't eat, and then cried after all while seeming so hungry. Of course, I freaked out and immediately thought we'd be changing formula and dealing with a sensitive stomach again. Instead of making a rash decision, I called our neighbor (who happens to be a NICU nurse - and yes, at the hospital where Addie stayed) and asked for her advice. She recommended a new bottle/nipple combination. She said it sounded like Addie was collapsing the nipple, thus, getting frustrated, eating less and always seeming hungry. We quickly went out and got a new kind of bottle/nipple arrangement and wa la! everything is right back on track. Thank goodness for our neighbor!!!

"I'm done!!!"

Otherwise, Addie has been a really nice baby to be around. She needs her gas drops to be totally happy, but doesn't complain much otherwise. When something does bother her, she goes from zero to pissed in about 3 seconds flat! I can't believe how much more quickly time has been passing, too. I'm sure having Lexi around has made the days go by faster. Allen has been home and will be for the next 2 weeks so I haven't been on my own either. I have to say this round of mommyhood has been pretty great so far!