August 7-8, 2013:

I'm feeling emotional right now. I'm tired and there are lots of things to do. It's been a busy day for RJ with going to the pediatricians office for his 6 month shots and then peds urology for starting the process to get his circumcision. I thought he was going to have it done in the office, but due to his age they have to do it in the OR and he has to be put under, which means probably intubated. Dr. Ziada said we need to wait till he's 6 months adjusted, so that would be October. We have scheduled the procedure for the first Tuesday in November which is the 5th. We will go back middle of October to have the H&P updated and resign consents. He's going to have to be NPO for a certain period of time before the minor surgery, but I'm not sure how long. He gets soooooo fussy when he doesn't have his food. He screams at the top of his lungs when we don't move fast enough to get his bottle now. I can only imagine having to wait multiple hours without food in his belly... They are waiting till he's 6 months so that they can do just a day procedure. He should be big enough by that time to properly recover from anesthesia, otherwise if done now they would have to keep him overnight and it would be a little more risky. Robert keeps assuring me that everything will be alright. I just hate hospitals now and I'm sick of being in them. At least this is supposed to be an easy procedure and only be around 45 min. If I'm all emotional and red eyed right now, I can only imagine what kind of basket case I'm going to be come November 5th... I'll need a million more prayers on that day. :)

RJ's 6 month peds appointment went well today. He got more shots poor lil guy. The nurse had me hold him and then I promptly kept feeding him his bottle. He usually does pretty good with them. He hasn't had any reactions so far. Here's hoping he does great tonight and has no issues. He's 9 lb 14.5 oz and 22 inches long!! He's gaining slowly but surely. I asked about when we start rice cereals and the NP we saw today said she'd call the NICU nutritionist to double check. Turns out they start preemies on meat first. We are going to have to come up w/ a meat substitute plan b/c I feel very strongly against giving my baby real meat. That's a decision he can make down the line in high school like his daddy did. I have an easy recipe for gluten which is super high in protein, plus there is tofu and all the Morning Star meat substitues I can grind up. Oh boy... had no idea we were going to have this issue to deal with...

The last time I blogged was on Sunday July 21st. That Monday the 22nd I had a doctors appointment and RJ ended up not getting a lot of his naps. I was talking to Robert about wondering how long RJ would sleep if I didn't set my alarm. I was getting tired of the set night schedule. So, I went to bed around 10pm and bolted awake around 4am all confused b/c I hadn't been woken up! Turns out RJ was just super duper tired. The rest of the week he would give me at least one 5-6 hr stretch. Then we went on vacation and that changed. We've been watching his weight on a regular basis and it dipped from about 9.5 lbs to 9 lbs, so we decided to start waking him up during the night again. On our vacation he was automatically waking up every 3 hrs or so and now that we are home I'm back to setting my alarm clock. Bummer....

I started to write a few things down on a sticky note that I wanted to blog so I would't forget. I even thought I'd blog while on vacation, but we didn't have very good internet. I remember a few weeks back it was during the middle of the day and I was breastfeeding. All of a sudden RJ pulled himself off and just stared up at me intently. I stared back at him. It was so sweet. After he had studied me, he went back to eating.

So RJ had his first flight cross country last week. Last Sunday in preparation Robert had to pack b/c he had a 24 hr OB call shift on Monday and we were to fly out of Lexington at 11am Tuesday morning. We had been at the lake for a large part of the day Sunday and it was late when we got home, just in time for RJ's bedtime. We decided to have RJ sleep in his own room so Robert could pack. We put the co-sleeper in his crib so he would feel safe and not feel like too many changes happened. I had the iPad set up w/ the monitor screen next to our bed, but was afraid I wasn't going to hear him cry. Needless to say I didn't sleep very good that night. I prayed God would wake me up and he did. RJ didn't have any screaming sessions. :)

August 8, 2013:

RJ was pretty fussy yesterday afternoon/evening. I was unable to finish my post, so here's my next try. :) Our trip to Monterey, CA went well. We went to see Robert's grandma who is over 95 years old. It turned into a mini family reunion. His parents were gracious enough to purchase our tickets. We are of course saving our shekels. I was super nervous about flying w/ an infant and how to feed him and pump. I opted to breastfeed and supplement w/ bottles. It worked way better on the trip out than on our return. I have to admit that I was way more exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally than RJ was after all the flights. Thankfully we didn't have any uncontrollable crying on the planes. He was able to be pacified. It was special being able to introduce RJ to his great-grandma and his aunts and cousins. I was even lucky to get extra sleep in the mornings after mom took RJ. He got lots of grandma and great-grandma time.

RJ has adjusted back to eastern time pretty well. It's taken longer to get him to sleep at night even though it's clear he's tired. I also had to start giving him a bottle either before or after breastfeeding him the past few nights. I guess he's going through another growth spurt or something. Last night I got teary-eyed b/c I felt like he wanted the bottle over my boobs. It's such a special thing to breastfeed and I felt like he was starting to grow out of it. He likes the instant food versus being patient. I don't know... we shall see what happens. Because he had lost a lil weight before our trip, I decided to start waking RJ up twice a night to feed him a bottle. I guess it's been working since he's about 10 lb now!!

I ended up giving RJ a dose of Tylenol last evening to see if that would help him be less fussy. At least he was able to sleep pretty well last night. He woke up an hr earlier this morning and has been fussy all day. It's been extra challenging to figure out what he's needing. I gave him another dose of Tylenol this morning. He had flinched when I was putting on his lotion this morning to his legs. He didn't take much of a morning nap, so after his 11am feeding I knew he was tired. He fought it terribly. I ended up taking him upstairs to rock him in his room and then bring him back downstairs to his swing. What a mess...

Oh I keep forgetting to mention that the last time my mom was here she brought my baby book. It was fun looking through it and reminiscing. Turns out my first baby pic in the hospital shows me sticking my tongue out. Robert felt so much better to know RJ's tongue thing must be genetic. :) It was pretty funny.

So, I ended up switching my birth control method a few weeks ago. I've just been having the worst time gaining weight. I thought it was supposed to slowly fall off after the baby was born. It's quite depressing to see the numbers slowly increasing. Anyways, in addition to the exercising I've been trying to do, I'm starting to make "green" smoothies in the mornings and watching my carb intake. Today was my third day and it's been going pretty well. I have the "green" smoothie (spinach, apple, banana, apple juice, celery, and vanilla yogurt) in the morning w/ a slice a of bread ( that only has 7 carbs and is super delicious from Trader Joe's). Then salad and some main dish for lunch and a big salad for supper. Robert helped me put the groceries away the other night and said "Wow there's a lot of green in this fridge!" Hehehe. I got to do something so my clothes will fit again. Workout clothes and dresses is all I can wear currently without going out to buy a new wardrobe. Oh mercy... Ok that's enough of my ranting.

Well silly RJ is still not wanting to poop on a regular schedule. The past few weeks he's gone 7 days without anything, so I've had to give him a suppository. Then of course there is action. It's pretty ridiculous. I've been doing the rectal stimulation, but it just doesn't seem to be working. It's like he doesn't feel the urge to poop. It's still another month or so before we go back to Peds Surg regarding this issue. They keep saying he's going to grow out of it. Diaper changing is a whole lot less messy 99% of the time. :)

Well, I've been working on going through all the pictures we've taken since I went into the hospital in January. It's taken me a long time b/c I wasn't very consistent. It was at times quite emotional looking at those early pictures of when RJ was so sick. I was semi reliving the experiences. We were wanting to make copies of pics for Robert's great grandma to leave w/ her, but that didn't quite happen. So the other night I uploaded multiple hundreds of pics to Shutterfly so I could make a photo book. It's currently around 60 pages long. I wanted to tell the story of RJ's entrance into the world from the beginning of my being hospitalized. We are so lucky to have him in our lives. It could have been so much worse. I tend to be a pessimist and Robert the optimist. He keeps reminding me that when I start feeling down to just stop and take a second to remember where we came from and how much worse it could have been for both RJ and myself. We had a million angels working over time to help protect us. There must be a special purpose for sparing both our lives.

The past couple mornings I've tried a new approach to my mornings. I've stayed awake after the 4:30am feeding and pumping. I come downstairs to make a hot drink and have some worship for about 30 mins. Yesterday morning I succumbed to the couch after that and feel asleep till RJ woke up. Today I was able to stay awake and got a number of things accomplished in the hour I had left before RJ woke up. I hope I can keep this up. It's nice to have the quiet time in the morning without distractions. I can always take a nap throughout the day.

I guess I should start working again on the photo book before RJ wakes up. I hear his lil lips a smacking. :) Thanks again for all the support, prayers, and love. We greatly appreciate it.