Carol's First Month

Okay, so it's not May 7th yet, but tomorrow she is official four weeks old. So, here is a little update of everything (that I can remember) that happened during her first month of life.

Week One:
We spent most of her first week in the hospital recovering from the c-section and getting her newborn jaundice situated. We decided that physically breastfeeding was not in our cards, so we decided that bottle feeding with breast milk would be best. The end of week one brought us many visitors including my parents, Tricia's parents and her sister and partner. Carol's weight was still low at the first doctor's visit, but she assured us that during week two, it would increase.

Week Two: Carol's weight creeped up slowly, but not nearly enough as the doctor's would have liked. We were told to give her as much food as she'll eat. She went from 7.8 in the hospital and at the first Dr.'s appt to 7.12 in week two. Week three would provide us great relief and surprise to see how much she had gained. Tricia and I got out of the house this week and went to her sister's birthday party. Woo-hoo! Mommy had a cocktail...okay a few. Who am I kidding? How fun!

Week Three: By week three we were all getting to know each other a little better. The bottle feeding was going well, but she was still really gassy and sometimes you could tell she was in pain with gas bubbles. We've used Playtex Air Vent bottles, Avent bottles (at $9 a bottle!!) and this week we tried out the Dr. Brown's... The Playtex is our least favorite. The Avent bottles are okay, but she spits out half of what she's eating and there's too many bubbles in the bottle. The Dr. Browns are okay (even if you need an engineering degree to figure them out). She doesn't spit most of it out, there's no bubbles and they don't leak like the Avent ones did. So far, really no complaints about Dr. Browns...with the exception of the fact that she's still really gassy and boy are the farts starting to SMELL!!! Tricia went with me to the dr.'s when the baby again this week to follow up on the weight. The dr normally wants the baby to gain about an ounce a day...which would mean that over a week's period of time, she would gain 7 ounces. There were ten days between her visits and she was up to 9lbs!!! She gained twenty ounces over ten days. Double what they wanted. Needless to say, she caught up. In the waiting room, a woman asked us who the mother was and we responded that she has two mommies. The woman to our surprise said, "Oh how great! How lucky is she?! Not everyone has two mommies." We thought that was cute.

Into Week Four: Today is Monday and it's a milestone: the first time the poo came up the back of the diaper and onto the clothes!!! That was fun. We had her ankles by her ears trying to get that off....I guess it could have been easier to just roll her over... It's Mother's Day this weekend. Our first...And we're heading to see my dad and step mother over the weekend so they can see the baby. Our friend Jill had her baby shower this past weekend and her niece (okay, it's really her second cousin, but more like a niece) asked us a really cute question about the baby. Jill is a step mother and her niece (Olivia) plays with Jill's step daughter (Samantha).
Olivia: Who's the mommy?
Tricia: We're both the mommy. But Liz had the baby.
Jill: Yeah, like how Samantha has two mommies and a daddy.
Olivia: So, you're like the step mom then? (to Tricia).
Liz: I think it's a fair question... and really astute to be honest.

We'll keep you updated when more happens!