Five Days Old

Getting on the computer to write has been hard, so I've been using a notebook while nursing William to get down what I'm thinking. I have huge regrets not having any of my thoughts about Natalie's first nine months or so written down. I'll never be able to share them with her, and they would be a huge help to me at this time. I'm finding it hard to remember what things worried me and how I felt about them exactly. What is especially strange to me still when trying to compare this time to last time is that at the fifth day of life with Natalie, we were still in the hospital! We came home that day and my milk didn't come in until that morning! We came home on William's third day and my milk came in that day as well. So, with Natalie's jaundice, the big issue was having enough milk to feed her to get the bilrubin out of her system, with William the problem is there being plenty of milk, but him falling to sleep after nursing only ten minutes. I think I was so happy to have milk that I could have dealt with any discomfort. As Mike keeps pointing out, we were further along in the process and I had bleeding blistered nipples, yet the LC said everything we were doing was fine. I'm sure it is the same this time and its all just part of getting going again.

One thing that I marvel at is how huge Natalie seems. Picking her up is hard for me now because she feels so heavy. Even just moving her down to do a diaper she seems like a giant. How did I carry her around on my hip at the library when I was pregnant just a week ago. She also amazes me with how grown up and smart she is. Every day there are new words or phrases. She learns new opposites from a book, or repeats a new song back to me. I've really loved being able to hug her close again. I missed that so much while pregnant. And, she's been coming for snuggles and hugs, too. In fact, she is sitting on my lap right now watching me type, which I would think is very boring when you can't read.

I also marvel at how quickly I've become attached to William. True, sometimes I still think he is newborn Natalie magically transported to our time. I think its the nursing. Its such an intense experience, that I link it back to Natalie. It doesn't help that William does look an awful lot like Natalie when he is sleeping all peacefully curled up against me. But what makes it particularly funny this time around is that I know how what we are seeing of William now is nothing compared to what we will see later. He is showing us so little of his personality and likes, yet I still love him so much. He mostly sleeps, nurses, and cries when we change his diaper, but I can't help staring at him most of the time he is latched on to me. And I love it when he has those periods of alterness when I get to see his eyes actually open. Its nice just for us to look at each other then. I used to feel I had to entertain Natalie during all those times, but with William thus far, these wakeful periods are either right before or during nursing or later at night when I'm not going to break out the Beatles 1 CD to dance with him (something I did a lot with Natalie in the early weeks).

We head out today for our second outing. Today it is play group. Yesterday afternoon, I was feeling I needed the support a lot more than today, but I'm still very happy to be going for Natalie to get to play. My high hopes of using the ring sling quickly fell apart. I had a very rough time getting it threaded properly yesterday. I have yet to try putting William into it. I'm worried it is going to feel very strange in comparison to our old sling, and that nursing is out of the question right now considering we are still have some trouble with latching on well, nipple trama, and him staying awake. But, I do want to see if I can actually get him into the thing today. He's slept so well every where so far, that I haven't felt a huge need to use it. But, there will come a time when he'll want to be carried and Natalie will want to do something else. Bed time is that time right now. I want to be there, but don't want to leave an alter William all alone somewhere for 20 minutes. With Natalie, we used the sling a lot when she didn't fall asleep at the breast in the middle of the night. I'd then wake her to sleep. Thus far, that's not an issue for William.