strange blogger thing?

Just so you know - that Three Weeks post was just put up today... I don't know why the date says April 11th (?)

Three Weeks!

Over the past couple weeks I've written a few venting posts about breatfeeding but then decided to save posting them until I felt I had a bit of perspective. Some of these unpublished posts included gems such as:

"When I was pregnant I heard that the first few weeks of breastfeeding are difficult. WOAH! I was chatting with a friend who does marathons and ironmans and she described begining breastfeeding as the most 'difficult' thing she's ever done. Ooohhhh - that kind of difficult... " and,

"No one told me about this evil vampire, bloody nipple stage!"

However, our midwives have been very supportive and for the past week we have been on a 3-hr schedule including a mix of breastfeeding, pumping and syringe feeding. The last stage of syringe feeding has been to try to get him to stop biting - thank goodness he doesn't have teeth yet! His weight has been fluctuating as just as he was begining to put some ounces back on he ripped a couple of peices off my nipple and I went to nipple sheilds, which then reduced my milk supply and sent his weight back down. Today we had a check up and he is finally back to his original birth weight. And I swear almost overnight he has out grown our current rotation of onesies and sleepers, and we are starting into our pile of 3-6 month sizes.

He has developed excellent muscle control of his neck, is very alert and observant when awake, and has started pushing quite strongly with his legs, though thankfully has yet to gain any purchase with his feet. Although he is big and strong, we are absolutely not ready to have him scooting around on his own quite yet!

Here he is at 12 days old, and another of him with Jeff just a couple of days ago (Diane, note your housewarming quilt in action!):

Birth story and first pics of Silas

By now you've all figured out that Silas is a big baby.  We had an ultrasound scheduled for April 1st (just before wk 39) and although completely healthy, I was on a trend of ever increasing amniotic fluid and the baby was growing with gusto!  We decided to try an induction (had been brought up before, so it wasn't totally spur of the moment) as it seemed like a decent time to compromise between letting nature take it's course and being intimidated by just how big my belly could stretch before having serious issues.  By Wednesday morning induced conditions were not ideal and we decided to schedule a c-section before things got out of hand; i.e. healthier going in = easier recovery coming out and less stress on the baby we figured.  It was also nice because both the OBs and the midwives totally agreed that it was a good way to go.  

So, we waited all day as emergency sections kept coming up which was stressful, and although my thoughts go out to all the other women in the ward that day, it reinforced how happy we were that I was not an emergency.  The induced contractions were also lessening now that the hormones were wearing off, giving me a bit more time for napping after >24 hrs of chemical stimulation.  We were finally next in line and with no emergencies on the immediate horizon, things got underway.  

Here is the little monkey in the hospital the next morning (Thursday) and a second of him in his current state as I type this (Monday).  

And there you go!  Next pic will have him awake, I promise :)

Silas Chester Sears

This past Wednesday (02/04/08) brought us a beautiful 9 lbs 13 oz baby boy!  (At 10:32 pm in Calgary - just in case anyone wants to check his horoscope)

Blame lack of sleep, but this won't be the most detailed post.  I'll post the whole birth story later; all in all though we are mesmerized by this little man :)