Two Weeks

Our son is two weeks today (actually, early this morning at 12:32 AM). A lot has happened in that time, and we've gone through funny and stressful situations.

Luca has been fine since he was born. (He has an appointment tomorrow, so I'll be sure to post an update then.) Kyra, on the other hand, has struggled a bit after the surgery. She had unusual abdominal pain that persisted for a few days. We ended up going to the doctor, then to the hospital for an abdominal ultrasound, and finally to the ER for an emergency CT scan. Everything was negative, except Kyra's pain receptors blaring at 8 out of 10 on the pain scale. Eventually, the pain subsided and just went away. We don't know what happened.

Then there's the nausea, which could be from a number of things, including her body recovering from the surgery, which included a massive anti-biotic and may have killed off her friendly bacteria, the ones that help her digest food; lack of sleep; or breast feeding, which has been a challenge unto itself.

We visited the lactation consultant (a nurse who is actually trained in lactation and breast feeding!), and Kyra practiced with the baby. He keeps falling asleep; then he also screams and is unable to eat because he's screaming (way to go, little guy--kind of self-defeating, isn't it?); and of course he is hungry all the time, giving Kyra as little as an hour to sleep or rest in between feeding.

Every day is different. I'm sure once Kyra has the time or energy she'll have plenty to say about all of this. Today sounded like it was okay. Things have been going better. Little by little. (Thanks to everyone for the encouragement!)

I'm back to work, now, too, so it's difficult for our family to be separated for 8 or more hours every day. I'd like to be at home to help with our new family member, but we do need to pay the bills with something (preferably cash, or so they tell me). Work is okay. I'm still doing a lot of training. I get the feeling one of my superiors really did not like the fact that I took an extra week off to help Kyra recover from the surgery. She never stopped by on my first day back to congratulate me or ask how we were doing. Almost everyone else did (except one of the guys, who doesn't seem too interested). At any rate, with some time, it should all be forgotten.

Eventually Kyra will be back to write again. And we'll write an entry about funny things babies do!