So it's been quite a roller coaster transitioning into parenthood. I'm ridiculously in love with Jackson, but I want to kill myself when I can't figure out why he's wailing at 3am. For the most part, I'm just madly in love with his adorable face. That whole thing about how you'll never realize your capacity for love until you have a child... totally true. I can't even explain the level of emotion this tiny little person brings out of me. I thought I loved his dad more than anything in the world, but he's narrowly beating Dan in that race. It's borderline obnoxious how melty my heart gets just looking at him.
But then there's those "I'm seriously going to kill myself" moments. It's been about an hour-long stretch every night since we've been home where there is just absolutely no consoling the kid. He's nursed forever, his diaper is clean, he's had a bath... nothing works. He started it up tonight and we swaddled him up real tight in one of those Sleep Halo Sack things, turned on the womb sounds machine, and put him in bed, and he was immediately out like a light. I'm praying we've figured out a solution. But I'm kicking myself for not being in bed too... so when he wakes up in a couple of hours, I'm gonna hate my life.
Then there's the nursing conundrum. When my milk first came in, it was epic. I could manually pump 6 ounces in an hour and life was grand. But in the last few days, that's dropped off drastically. I can't pump hardly anything, so every couple of hours, I have to sit on the couch hoping he's getting enough directly from the source. Not being able to physically measure it scares me. I don't know if he's getting enough. Yeah, he's having the standard 8-12 diapers per day, but is he fully satiated after feeding? Ugh. We have an appointment with the health department on Tuesday where they'll weigh him to make sure he's gaining, so we'll know for sure. And if he's not, there's a good chance we'll have to move to formula. Dan and I talked about that last night, and that absolutely breaks my heart. Before I started breast feeding, I had the mentality of "if I can do it, awesome, if not, oh well", but now that I've been at it for a couple of weeks, and I know how hardcore Dan was about it because it's so much better for Jack, I seriously cried for like, an hour last night, worrying about having to switch to formula. Oye.
So all in all, I'm tremendously thankful that we're getting the chance to have this experience. As frustrating, and terrifying, and emotionally draining as it can be, I think that in the end, it'll totally be worth it.
I close with a most adorable picture of my 2-week old son.
Jack is 2 weeks old, and I might keep him around for a little while.
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