I love his little face :-)
Wow. I can hardly believe Caden is already 2 months old (10 weeks to be exact--so what i'm a little late :-P) These first two months have been such a whirlwind I don't know how we all made it through awake and alive :-P well we may not have been fully 100% awake--more like a half awake walking zombie-like existence for at least the first month--but hey we made it right?
I feel like we practically lived at the dr.'s office these past couple of months. I mean I swear we had to be there at least every week for one kid or the other. Of course Caden had to go back at 2 days after he was born then 2 weeks, then 2 months for well visits. But in those first 2 weeks we learned that he had breast milk jaundice and we had to go back weekly for the first month. I didn't know anything about this until he had it but apparently he was feeding well and eating enough, gaining weight well and otehr wise healthy but with breastmilk jaundice something doesn't quite click on in the liver and his body wasn't eliminating bilirubins like it was supposed to. He was really yellow and even the whites of his eyes were yellow and cause for concern. Although many sites I checked said that it would eventually go away on its own, our pediatrician recommended for me to stop breastfeeding for 2 days and give him formula while I pumped so that I wouldn't jeopardize my milk supply. The formula did what it was supposed to and after those 2 days his bilirubin levels went down and he stopped looking so yellow and was my happy healthy little boy.
*Warning--if you don't have a son or a penis (or any interest at all in hearing about circumcision) you may want to skip this paragraph :-P* Then we had an incident with his circumcision. At his 2 week check-up the pediatrician mentioned that his foreskin looked like it was really tight and covering a good part of the head of his penis (which it shouldn't have) and she expressed concern that it may need to be fixed. She did say that there was a good chance it could correct itself with no interaction on our part but if it looked the same in a couple of months we may want to think about seeing a urologist to find out if there would need to be any steps taken to correct it i.e. another circumcision or steroid ointment. A week or 2 later Chris was changing Caden's diaper and thought it looked like the foreskin was getting tighter and growing back up over the head of his penis. He also said it looked purple like it was cutting off circulation or something. I made an appointment to go BACK to the pediatrician to have it looked at and see if indeed it was worse and what we could do about it. She agreed it looked tighter and recommended we go ahead and see the urologist, since (and I quote) "They see alot more penises than I do." She (the pediatrician) told us to mention it looked like it was cutting off circulation so they would see us sooner since it typically takes a few weeks to get an appointment unless its an emergency type thing. We got an appointment for the very next week and of course once we go and see the actual urologist, who specializes in penises (not exactly but you know what I mean) she is able to pull the foreskin back almost all the way (which we were NOT able to do the previous week--i guess the ped knew what she was talking about when she said it may correct itself) but did say there were some adhesions around the base of the head of the penis. She offered to numb it and correct it that day or we could just keep retracting the foreskin ourselves and use A&D ointment and in a few months it should sort itself out. She said if she did it he would be sore and red for the next couple of days but if I did it over time there wouldn't be any discomfort...so I went with the least disomfort for him. She also said we would have to continue retracting the foreskin for at least the first year of his life to make sure it didn't re-adhese (if that's a word?) but everything was perfectly fine and we would more than likely not have to do a circumcision revision--thank goodness!
UPDATE: @ his 2 month check-up the adhesions were still there, so his pediatrician retracted the foreskin all the way and got rid of them--he didn't even whimper. Now no more adhesions, but we are still having to retract and coat with A&D ointment.
So anyways, other than all of that Caden seemed to be doing really well. He was gaining weight well and eating well. The only issue I had was the baby acne that he had ALL OVER his face--but it was normal (just looked awful) and has actually almost completely disappeared.
At Caden's 2 month check up he was 24 in long and weighed 11 lbs 9 oz. I was a little surprised he wasn't yet 12 lbs, but his weight gain was normal and healthy according to the chart they use. He was 45th percentile in weight and 90th percentile in height--Dr. said he's gonna be tall :-) He got all the vaccinations they give a 2 month old and lucky for us did NOT get a fever afterwards (which would have been completely normal...just not fun to deal with) The Dr. listened to his lungs and checked his ears since we had just been dealing with Sydney having RSV and bronchiolitis and ear infections and she wanted to make sure Caden was ok. He was :-) So everything was great with him :-)
Unfortunately the following week was not so great. On Valentine's Day (2/14/2012), we had an awful scare and trip to the children's ER. We had given Caden a bottle of formula (because I have trouble getting ANYTHING when I pump and the Dr. recommended getting him used to a bottle regularly so I'm not tied down to him 24/7, and I wanted a glass of wine with my hubby for Valentine's Day) and he was fine until 2 1/2 hours later when he woke up projectile vomiting. He threw up SO MUCH that at one point all he was throwing up was this yellow substance (i assumed was bile but had no idea) and I was scared to death. We cleaned him up after the first vomiting episode and before we put him in the tub he had the BIGGEST BM i've ever seen come out of a baby that small--it just didn't stop. He looked so pale and his eyes were purple tinged and i was terrified! After the bath he started looking better and started acting like he was hungry (and I don't blame him--I'd prob be starving too if I voided as much as he just had). I tried breastfeeding and he fed just fine for about 15 minutes, then almost immediately threw it all back up again. Again I was so frightened and had no idea what I should do. So, I called the ER nurse line at Dell Children's and they said since he was under 6 months to bring him in, but don't try feeding him again til i got the ok from the Dr. Now by the time I get to Dell it's 1am. They check his vitals and take us through triage, then it was just a waiting game till the Dr saw us. Long story short(er) the doc thought it was pyloric stenosis which is supposedly not serious and very common at his age, did an ultrasound to check, but found that it was NOT. After the ultrasound I could finally feed him(poor baby was starving) and since he ate well and didn't throw up again the doc chalked it up to Caden not liking the formula we gave him and that he should be fine and sent us home. Got home at around 6:30/7am with NO sleep all night and Caden was sleeping and perfectly fine :-/ I had to get Syd up and ready for school, then came home and maybe got to take an hour and a half nap while Caden slept and before I had take him to his ped for a follow up and then get Syd from school. The pediatrician said he looked fine (but was concerned he may have reflux--although she didn't share this with me till later since he seemed completely 100% normal at the time)
The following day I was having problems feeding Caden. He would feed for 5-10 minutes then pull off and act like he was still hungry but refused to re-latch. I would switch sides and he would again feed for 5-10 minutes then pull off still hungry and super fussy but would NOT latch back again. I called the dr. because I didn't know if this was something serious I needed to worry about or not. She pretty much said it could be a hanful of things--either he had reflux (which was her main concern and what she thought it was and would also help explain the crazy vomiting episode), he had developed an ear infection or some other infection and the fussiness was the only indication, OR I was having a problem with my milk supply. She told me to try a bottle (of breastmilk or formula--i was afraid of formula but we switched from simulac back to enfamil and he did ok) and if he did the same on the bottle it was almost definitely reflux. He did GREAT with the bottle and actually slept for 6 hours straight at night! We determined it was a supply issue because of all the stress of worrying about him and not getting enough rest (HA! what mom of 2 EVER gets enough rest!) and that I would need to supplement while I tried to increase my supply again by pumping ALL DAY LONG! Awesome! :-/ So after a couple of days of that I have decided that I am just going to supplement and breastfeed for as long as I can. I don't get more than a half an ounce everytime I pump which is practically nothing and I just feel defeated the more I try and the less I succeed. I have come to the conclusion that although it is disappointing that I can't solely breastfeed, we are both alot happier when he has a full belly and I'm not tied to a breast pump for most of my day. I mean I had to supplement with Syd and she turned out just fine, so it's totally fine that I'm having to supplement with Caden. Any breast milk is good breast milk right?!
Ok so wow....that's a long one. I need to stop waiting so long between blogs to write. Still have to update on Sydney's bout with RSV and on how well she is doing in school...but that will have to wait. Till then... :-)
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