The First Two Weeks

Everyone tells you those first two weeks after birth are hard. They are not lying. We brought Josephine home after 3 days in the hospital. With nurses and other staff in and out of the room every hour, we had barely slept there. We were exhausted and overwhelmed. When we brought Josie home she was jaundiced, so we knew we had to take her back to the doctor the next day.

Our first night at home I did not sleep. I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding and Josie barely had any wet diapers, so I knew she hadn't had much to eat. At the doctor's office, they confirmed she had lost more than 10 percent of her birth weight and we needed to do supplemental feedings. We didn't have a breast pump yet, so we had to trek across town to pick one up. We had to wake her up to feed her every two hours and then give her an ounce of breast milk through a tube and syringe. While this on its face doesn't sound terribly stressful, when you've barely slept in days and you're still physically recovering from child birth, it's horrible. We were so worried about how tiny she'd become. On top of it, her bilirubin level was too high and she needed a bili blanket. Fortunately, we did not have to take her to the hospital for this treatment. Someone brought the blanket to our house and she wore it for 2 days. She looked like an adorable glow worm.

We tried various sleeping arrangements those first two weeks - but mostly I slept in our recliner with Josie on my chest. This was not ideal, nor considered a safe way to sleep, but it was the only way either she or I could get any sleep. I must admit, I didn't hate it. Having your little baby on your chest is just about the greatest feeling in the world. And knowing the sound of your heartbeat is what's comforting her is pretty amazing.

At her two week check up, Josie had gained back her birth weight and then some. She was seven and a half pounds and doing great.

Andrew was home with me the first two weeks. He took care of everything around the house while I fed the baby. It pretty much felt like that was all I did. Since I'm writing this a couple of months after the fact, it doesn't seem so bad. But at the time I was fairly miserable. Fortunately babies grow and change fast, because those first two weeks are really hard. But we got through them!

Just a few days old...

Our tiny glow worm.