he's in double digits….

I took Riley in for his 5 week checkup and got the assurance that our boy is eating well and putting on the pounds. His doc was looking for 9 lbs 11oz and he weighed in at 10 even. So my worries that he was down to eating only 6 times a day doesn’t seem to be an issue. Milk production remains high – thankfully.

We’ve moved his bedtime earlier to see if this helps us to organize his sleep now that he’s nearing 6 wks. We’re good about feeding him approx. every 3 hours during the day, but I haven’t been diligent about laying him down for naps – esp. with all the running around I’ve been doing lately. I’m trying a 5-day experiment in which we put him to bed earlier and get him down for naps at the first sign of tiredness. Last night, he went down at 8p and he slept for 7 hours, took a feeding and slept another 4. We’ve seen him sleep that long during the night a few times before, so now we’ll see if it will be more consistent. He had 2 good (2+ hrs) naps today, morning and afternoon, and I’m curious to see if his body is ready to begin a routine of napping and sleeping longer during the night.

I had to endure Riley’s first blood draw today to check his medication levels. He did fine for the heel prick – it was the squeezing of his foot to draw out the necessary amount of blood that he didn’t like. Hearing him scream for 15 minutes was not fun – I got a little choked up briefly, but got a hold of myself. I hope I’ll toughen up over time since this will be a part of his life at least until he’s off the meds.

In other news, the lovely Miss Zippy came over to our house this week for a play date. Not that Riley does much “playing” as of yet, but we feel it’s never too early to encourage a good match.

Zippy’s giving hugs now; she nearly attacked the unsuspecting Riley:

Riley's giving us his tough-guy face in this one:

Shelby

Riley’s one month old!

Our sweet baby boy is one month old today. It took about 12 tries to finally get a shot where Riley wasn’t falling into Pooh or squirming onto his back. He was pretty hungry, but cooperated with us as we worked on getting the right shot. He was rewarded with a nice big meal afterwards…

We didn’t do anything in particular to mark the occasion, but did inaugurate our first family walk around Lake Quannapowitt. I usually walk with Riley an hour there each day. It was nice to have daddy along with us as well.

Riley continues to sleep well at night; he sleeps at least 4-6 hours before daddy’s middle-of-the-night feed and another 3-4 before my early morning feed. He’s even had a couple of nights this past week in which he slept 11-12 hours with just one feeding. He can go 3-4 hours between feeds during the day now that he’s nursing more efficiently. When offered, he takes a bottle of cold breast milk from Dad or me, which is awesome. When he wants to suck and it’s between meals, he is content to be “binked”. We’re glad we accepted the 6 pacifiers offered to us at the hospital – we have them all over the house.

He sleeps well in his crib and the car seat ride is a guaranteed nap. He spends more of his awake time looking intently at mom and dad and has even tried to mimic the faces we have made. He gives us baby kisses when we kiss him on or around the mouth. Very sweet. I think he made his first attempt at “talking” to me today. J and I both determined this since he wasn’t squawking, crying, squeaking, grunting or snorting – the only noises he has made so far. I think he’s smiled at each of us at least once – we didn’t hear him pass gas, so we assume it was his adoration of mom and dad.

He’s tracking objects with his eyes and is showing a lot of interest in the world around him. His neck control continues to improve. He enjoys music and books (current favorites are “Here Come the ABC’s” by They Might Be Giants and “The Bible Rhyme Book”) and light of any kind.

This week, he took his first trip to the beach at Plum Island with Betsy, who is a good friend of ours in Newburyport. We plan to see "Gramma Betsea" a lot this summer to enjoy her company, her amazing garden and her beach.

Shelby

first father’s day

We spent Jonathan’s first Father’s Day in Connecticut with his parents and two of his brothers. Riley got to meet his cousins Brendan, Britney, Sean and Daniella and spend some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Berg. Here’s a few of the pictures from our trip:

Giving Daddy baby kisses:

With Cousins Brendan, Britney and Uncle Bruce:

With Mom and Dad on the porch swing:

Riley managed the out-of-state trip well, however we didn’t leave until dinnertime Sunday night and as a result of his automatic 2.5 hour nap in the car, he didn’t get to sleep until 1am. We’ve made note of that factoid for future trips…

J and I were talking on the way home about how much we are enjoying having a baby in our family. The change of lifestyle that Riley’s presence has necessitated hasn’t left us feeling like were missing anything. Instead, he’s added so much joy to our lives that we welcome the change after so many years of singleness and “freedom”. It’s truly the happiest time of our lives and we thank God every day for our boy.

J has waited 25 years to become a father and he’s loves to tell people how much he enjoys giving Riley his bottle at 3am, changing his poopy diapers and spending time with his boy (at the expense of mtn biking, believe it or not!). Having to wait a long time puts those “inconveniences” in perspective. And I’m thankful to have such as enthusiastic and hands-on husband who does a great job of taking care of our son. It makes me happy to see them bonding together. I saved my favorite picture from this weekend for last:

Daddy loving his boy:

Shelby

shouldn’t I be more stressed?

I’m happy to report that my first week at home alone with Riley has been a good one. In the main areas of eating, sleeping and getting out of the house, he’s proving to be an easy baby.

Eating:

We’ve continued to have our b/f difficulties due to latching problems so I had another consultation with the lactation specialist two days ago. I’ve been pumping in the meantime, so my milk supply is abundant, but that gets to be a drag now that I’m ready to get out of the house more. I’ve added two accessories that have fixed the main problems – a new nursing pillow and a nipple shield. The new pillow (ridiculously called “My Brest Friend”) has allowed me to get Riley positioned correctly. The shield helps my nips heal as we continue to practice nursing. I’m happy to report that we have had two full successful days of b/f. I’m much more hopeful that we’ll be able to get in sync with each other and that I’ll be able to ditch both accessories before too long. I’ll still pump at the end of the night so J can give Riley a bottle, but at least the majority of the feedings will be straight from me.

A first for us today is that we were able to b/f discreetly in the car today – twice – so we won’t be tethered to the house for feedings anymore.

Sleeping:

Riley continues to wake just once in the middle of the night and again in the early morning. He still sleeps a lot during the day and is getting used to a daily rhythm of sleeping, eating and wake time (if he stays awake after feeding) before the cycle begins again. I don’t watch the clock too closely; I just try and keep him feeding every 2 - 3.5 hours depending on his hunger cues and how long he’s been sleeping.

A first for us today is that he is being moved from his bassinet to his crib due to my inability to sleep through some of the noise that he makes in his sleep. Since he gives a holler when he’s through his 30 min wakeup process, we’ll be able to hear him in his room with no problem. I hope to regain the 2 hours of sleep I’ve been losing the past 5 days or so.

Getting Out:

I have a built in need to get out of the house on a daily basis. In addition to doctor’s appointments and trips to the store, we’ve been able to visit my colleagues at InterGen, take several long walks around Lake Quannapowitt (in the neighboring town of Wakefield) and today Riley got to hear his first ocean waves as we took a stroll along the Gloucester waterfront. He has done great on all of his excursions and not a complaint so far.

I’ll close with a few pictures of our sweet boy that were taken during the past week. The first shows how he manages to wrest his arms out of the tightest swaddle –the reason he has to move to his crib is the loud grunting noises he makes while doing so.

Strike a pose – there’s nothin’ to it…

Riley with Grammy Browning…

Shelby

Week 1…

It’s been a good first week with our boy. He sleeps well and hardly cries except when he’s hungry. When we’re in bed, he will squirm and grunt for about 30 min before he finally lets out a squawk to let us know he’s ready to eat.

He’s a good sleeper so far… He gets up once in the night to eat (between 2-4) and again in the early morning (between 5-7), which affords J and I at roughly 7 hours of sleep with just one interruption. J takes the first feeding (with my stored milk) and I take the second and this seems to work well so far.

Mom left today to go back to Alaska – it was immensely helpful to have her here this past week to help with things around the house and with Riley. She even managed to help J with some organizing that he needed for the office. Thanks mom for helping us as we get adjusted to our new life as parents – it was great not to have to think about meals or laundry for a week as we focused on our son and taking care of him.

We tried putting Riley in the Baby Bjorn and it was hilarious to watch him immediately crane his neck over the side to try and catch of glimpse of life outside the carrier. He was using his feet to try and boost himself higher so he could get a better look. Here's a picture at one of his more successful "bobs" in the Bjorn:

Shelby

feet & feedings

Those of you who saw me in the final weeks of my pregnancy know that I had some serious fluid retention issues. I couldn’t find my true feet – they were lost in all the swelling. I can happily announce that my feet are back and for the first time since mid-April I can wear my regular shoes again:

My appt with the lactation consultant went very well and Riley was able to latch on (after many tries) and get a total of 3.2 oz of mama juice based on his weight before and after the feeding. I got a lot of great tips from the LC and we had two successful feedings thus far.

We had another good night of him sleeping 5 hours, getting a bottle from dad and sleeping another 3 hours before mom fed him. The LC suggested that I pump just before bed and let dad get up for the first feeding (by bottle) and I get up the second feeding so that each of us can have a concentrated 4-5 hours of sleep at a time. We’re going to try it tonight and see how it works.

Riley likes his swing (so does mama when she needs a break) so I’ll close with a picture of him in it.

Shelby

Day 2…

Yesterday, the first 30 hours with Riley home pretty much left me feeling that whatever I had learned from reading all those parenting books had been lost in some sort of “delivery amnesia”. The nursing seemed to take a nosedive as he’s not latching like he was in the hospital. My nips are in pain and my boy isn’t getting what he needs from just me – gotta keep pumping and giving the supplementary bottle.

Combine this with the reality that he’s still learning day from night (read: no playtime when it’s dark) so the grand plan to feed him and have him go right to sleep didn’t go so smoothly. He slept 4 hours, ate and was awake for 4 hours. Hence, the picture my mom took yesterday around 8am when we were all sacked out in the living room. After showing a willingness to sleep 5+ hours earlier in the evening (with our efforts to arouse him pretty much unsuccessful), we paid for it around 3am.

Then his pediatrician said to make sure that he eats at least every 3 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night. My difficulties in nursing and his sleeping habits left me wondering if that’s an achievable task right now. I had my first episode of “mama guilt”.

Then, I went to see my midwife and she informed me that I still have gestational hypertension and would need to have more blood drawn and to take blood pressure medication for the time being. Just as it was in the last half of my 3^rd trimester, my bp is up when I’m sitting or standing and it drops to normal when I’m lying down. How the heck do I lie around all day with a newborn??? I never had health problems until I got pregnant and assumed they’d go away quickly once I delivered. So, I’m taking drugs yet again – I thought I was done after I went off my pain meds last week.

After several meltdowns yesterday, J suggested that until we get breastfeeding established, I give Riley a bottle at night (since he’s less alert and won’t nurse as well) and use the times during the day when he’s more awake to practice b/f. We tried it last night and it was much better. I got the bottle warming and proceeded to pump as J changed Riley and fed him the bottle. We were both up a total of 2 times for 30 minutes and managed to get 7-8 hours of sleep.

Today, after giving myself the option of pump and bottle, my day has been completely stress-free. I fed my boy roughly every 3 hours and he takes a bottle, even when he’s half-asleep. Mama feels better knowing her boy is getting enough food. No more mama guilt.

I made an appt with a lactation consultant for tomorrow to see if we can remedy to b/f issues and got some special cream for sore nips that reportedly works wonders. If the problem isn’t resolvable I have my plan B of pump and bottle. More trouble, but Riley will still have the good stuff from mom.

He is so much fun to play with when he’s enjoying his wake time. His various facial expressions just slay me. I’m in love with this kid – no bones about it…

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures from his first bath – he did really well and didn’t cry once – that’s my angel baby:

Shelby

the morning after...

We love our boy!

Jonathan

home…at last

We got the good news this afternoon that Riley could be discharged if he passed one more bottle-feeding test to ensure that his O2 levels don’t drop due to uncoordinated sucking, swallowing and breathing. With mama’s help ensuring that he took a breathing break here and there, he passed with flying colors. So, we were out the door at 3:30 this afternoon. He wore his special homecoming outfit from “Auntie” Deborah (who works with me at InterGen) and I captured a picture of my baby boy in his car seat once we got him home:

He was so alert to his new surroundings that he had a hard time falling asleep. He was up from 2:30pm to 7pm with just a few very short spells of nodding off. He’s now sleeping soundly in his bouncer seat – didn’t like being in his bassinet for some reason. It’s so wonderful to have him home – already my schedule is dictated by him and that’s just fine with me. No more trips to the hospital – hallelujah. Having my mom here to help has been really good. Until I get coordinated with everything, she’s my extra pair of hands when I need them.

I look at my boy and still can’t believe he’s really mine – bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I’m so grateful for the blessing of being Riley’s mom and am cherishing these days with him even more after what we’ve been through the past two weeks. J hit the nail on the head when he said there’s a whole new realm of terrors that we feel now that we have a child. Those fears are going to drive us to the Lord who is stronger than us and loves our son as much as we do. I’m so glad there’s a throne in Heaven that is occupied and that we can trust Him with Riley’s life and well-being. This same God gives J and me the grace to endure when life doesn’t go the way we planned and we feel so helpless.

I’m reminded of Psalm 147-10-11 which says:

His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,
but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.

In answering why God would delight in those who fear him and hope in His love, John Piper writes:

Surely it is because our fear reflects the greatness of His power and our hope reflects the bounty of His grace. God delights in those responses which mirror His magnificence…When I cry out, “God is my only hope...!” I am turning from myself and calling all attention to the boundless resources of God.

We have felt helpless these past 12 days and have turned to our Lord for the healing of our son and the strength to make it through each day. We don’t often see His power until we run out of our own resources and run to Him for help. Help has come from many places and God has been faithful to His promises to care for our family. We praise Him for this and give Him the glory for His mercy shown to us.

Thanks again to all who have prayed for us, sent us well wishes, brought us food and snacks to eat and encouraged us with your visits, phone calls and emails. We are humbled by your kindness and grateful to be loved so well by so many.

Another blessing I’ve found is that this trial has bonded J and me even closer together and I am grateful for having such a supportive husband to walk through hard times with. I see more and more just how right J is for me – more evidence that God’s plan is always better than anything (or anyone) I could dream up for myself.

So, as J and I watch our sweet baby boy sleep, our hearts are filled with joy and thankfulness at having him home – right where he belongs.

Shelby

heartache…and then hope

Our day started today with finding out that Riley had another spell of decreased oxygenation during his 6:30 am feeding. We felt pretty discouraged by that and the prospect of one more day with our son in the hospital. Not the news we were hoping for. Each day seems to be more stressful and painful. With the prospect of my going back to work tomorrow it gets even tougher for me.

Shelby went in to Winchester early today so that she could get some concentrated mommy time in with our boy, as well as get more breast feeds in today. Riley’s been doing great with breast feeding. It’s interesting that the only time he’s had his “spells” as they call them has been when he has been feeding with a bottle. It gives us more confidence about feeding him at home since he’s going to mainly be a breast-fed kid.

I went to church today for the first time since before Riley’s birth. It was great to be able to worship. Especially to praise and thank God for my wife and my son. It was also heart wrenching. There are a whole bunch of newborns in the church right now, and every one of them (but Riley) was in church today. It was really tough having those empty spots in the pew next to me. It just seemed wrong. It was one of the only times in my adult life that I have wanted to get out of church as quickly as I could at the end. I have a built in need for my family just as I have the built in need to worship my Creator. So I was off to Winchester.

It’s amazing to me how fast the time goes when I’m with Shelby and Riley. I’ve always enjoyed just hanging with my wife, but that seems to be amplified now that we have our son. Something to do with that twenty ton sledgehammer of love that hit me I bet… We had the curtain they use to give privacy closed today and it felt more like a family space (even with the nurses popping in and out).

We’ve been working with a nurse named Nancy for the last three days who is another one of the really great people we’ve been blessed with. She’s been a great help with breast feeding and she’s already taken care of the lion’s share of the paperwork that will need to be done for Riley’s release. We’re hoping that bodes well. Which leads to our daily discussion with the doctor on duty today.

Five O’clock came and the doctor on duty for the day shift came by to discuss Riley’s case. His opinion is that the spells Riley has had are probably not something that will keep him in the hospital. The final say is up to Dr. McAlmon who is the doctor on duty during the day tomorrow. We’ve already been told that Dr. McAlmon is not quite as uptight about these things, and that the chances are good that she’ll discharge Riley. We’re a little wary of getting our hopes up too much, but it is nice to have the possibility that he’ll be coming home tomorrow. Especially since going in to the day we figured it would be no earlier than Tuesday. The other hopeful bit is that as we left today Riley was having his O2 levels checked in his car seat. They do this for 90 min. to make sure babies are safe to travel. He looked good as we were walking out. We can only hope.

So a day which started out painful leaves us with some hope. It’s great to have it as it tempers the high emotional level we’ve been on a little. Tonight we’re hopeful tomorrow will be homecoming day.

I’m looking forward to being woken up in the middle of the night to change Riley’s diaper and get him fed. Bring on normality.

We love our boy!

Jonathan

shouldn’t we be less stressed?

Another day at Winchester Hospital. Things there are more low-key than at Children’s, but the stress level is actually higher in some ways. It is getting harder each day to leave our boy. In a way it was worse today because we had to leave when Riley was still awake. For me it was like I was abandoning him. I know that Shelby didn’t take it any better than that. I think it’s more painful to leave him now because he’s acting like a normal newborn. Sleeping less, eating more and spending more time looking at your face when you talk to him. Especially when you hold him. We need an extra helping of God’s grace to get through this time as the stress is spilling over into every part of our life. We’ve had to do a lot of apologizing to each other over the last couple of days…

We had a short period of “normality” (read: things that have nothing to do with hospitals) this morning when we were able to go to our friends Marissa and Vitaliy’s wedding ceremony. It was a wonderful event and we wish them all of God’s blessings as husband and wife. By the end we were feeling the pull of missing our boy though and we were ready to head back to Winchester. Real normality would have been pushing a baby carriage. Not to be today. We’re aiming for church next week.

Adding to the stress level today was the fact that Riley had another episode of decreased O2 while eating overnight. He needs to have 48 hours without one of these periods to be released. It’s starting to make us crazy. We’ve tried to do some things differently to help Riley hit this last benchmark. First, having him eat every three hours instead of four so that he won’t be as hungry and maybe won’t guzzle his meals without breathing. He’s also going to be using an Avent limited flow nipple on his bottle. This will force him to have to work for his food (like when he’s breast feeding) rather than having the milk just pour out of the bottle into his mouth with no effort. I fed him with this bottle to “top him off” after mom’s breast feeding tonight and it was much different than with the other bottles. He acted the same way that he does when he’s breast feeding as far as swallowing goes, and was actually more awake at the end than when he started. Hopefully it’ll help him to pass his last “test” with flying colors and we’ll actually get to take him home on Monday. We’ll see.

So we have at least one more day of the hospital stay. We’re hopeful it will be the last. Ever. The next time I post pictures of myself and my boy (after the ones that follow here) I want to see a background of my home, church, or some friend or family member’s house. Even as we praise God for the hospitals and the people who have worked at them and the help Riley’s gotten, we’re really sick of being in the hospital. So, some pictures:

Dad feeds his boy (check out Riley's punk rock 'do):

Dad and Riley read the Bible Rhyme Book:

We love our boy!

Jonathan

in the ‘burbs

Today was spent at Winchester Hospital. Life is a lot different in a suburban hospital. Things are a lot more low-key, and of course the babies around us aren’t quite as sick. Most of them are just preemies. It’s a far easier place to spend the day in some respects. And it’s a much easier drive. It takes about 15 min. and there’s free parking.

Riley is doing very well. He’s been eating regularly (and a lot) and he’s remembering to breathe… The nurse who had him today took the feeding tube out of his nose. It’s so nice to see him with nothing stuck to his face or head. He looks like a normal one week old now. The red spot on his cheek (where the feeding tube was attached) looks like lipstick though:

Here’s a shot of the hair that has all the ladies sighing:

He’s taking very well to breast feeding. Since that’s still a new thing we’re still doing a combination of breast and bottle, but it’s all from mom and he gobbles it down. It’s nice that we don’t have to worry about him eating in whatever way we feed him. It means daddy can have a chance and it will also make it easier when Shelby goes back to work in three months. Grandma did some feeding today and got to hang out with Riley a bit:

We were getting a little frustrated with the fact that we hadn’t gotten any information on when we could expect to take our boy home. The doctor who was on today didn’t seem to have much to say to us. Finally Shelby got her attention and she told us that they wanted to have more than 48 hours with Riley, so we can figure on him being discharged on Monday morning. We had been hoping for Saturday afternoon, but you take what you can get I guess. One of the reasons for this is that they want to test his levels (HR, O2, etc.) when he was in his car seat. They do this for 90 min. and usually when he is sleeping at night. We also get to review a tape on infant CPR, which isn’t a bad idea either. At this point the levels of Phenobarbital in his blood are good, although they expect them to drop slightly before discharge and they will be checking them further. So we don’t get to take him to church this week like we wanted to. Better to make sure things are just right though.

We’re getting a little more antsy at the hospital now. Everyday normal family life can’t start early enough. A few more days and we’ll have our boy at home. He’s hitting all his benchmarks and he’s getting to be more fun each day as the medication level drops and he’s awake more. We’re so thankful that he’s doing so well. God has been blessing us in a big way.

Here’s our first family shot since the one taken in the delivery room. God willing there will be many more to come.

Thank you Lord.

We love our boy!

Jonathan