All About Jamie

Nighttime snuggles with Mama

Our little boy turned 6 weeks old this week.  It's hard to think that he's been in our lives for that long already.  On one hand, it feels as though he's always been here.  On the other, we feel completely lost still and unsure of what we're doing as new parents.  For me, it's hard to think that my leave is halfway over.  I desperately don't want to go back to my job, and I wish I had a way to stay home with Jamie for longer.  I'd love to somehow make it for one year at home with him, but know that we can't swing that financially.  In fact, if I don't get a massive raise when I return to work we'll be a little screwed, as we'll be paying roughly $10K a year in daycare.  Mostly, though, I just hate my job and my boss and don't want to go back.  The idiot actually contacted me two weeks ago and asked me for help with some things at the office... and I basically told him that, when Jamie was eating and sleeping better, I'd try to be available to help.  To be completely honest the idea of doing any more work for that place gives me so much stress... just checking my work email raises my blood pressure, and I'm so ready to move on with my career.

But the last 6 weeks have been really interesting.  Not only are we still learning about how to be parents but we are learning so much about Jamie.  He's just now starting to have more alert/awake time, in which we try to talk to him and interact with him, but we're noticing lots of little details about him.  Here's a short list of these things that I don't want to forget later on, as he grows up into a toddler and beyond:

• Jamie currently has two different ears.  As I tried to explain to Matt, he has a "G" ear and a "C" ear.  I don't know if these are the technical descriptions, but for now his little ears are adorably unique.
• He also has a small birthmark on the nape of his neck, underneath his hair.  It's a small "salmon patch" birthmark, from what I can see.  It's right where I have my thumb while I hold his head when he's eating, so of course the first time I saw it I panicked because I thought I was ruining his head.
• Speaking of his hair, he still has it!  It's starting to change from an ashy gray to a very light blonde, just as I suspected it would.  Apparently Matt's hair did the same thing when he was a baby, staying "tow head" blonde until he was a young child.  We're both still hoping that his hair grows in curly, and there is one spot on the side of his head where the hair is wavy!  
• Jamie's got super long, adorable eyelashes.  The lashes on his right eye are growing in dark, while the lashes on his left eye are still white/clear.  ADORABLE.
• He LOVES being held.  In the mornings, when we are up between 5:30 and 7:00, we'll eat and then come downstairs and snuggle in the rocker.  It usually turns into him falling back asleep, and I'll either doze off or watch the news.  It's one of my favorite times of the day.  We also typically have holding/snuggle time in the evenings before his last nighttime feeding.  I try to put him in his rocker during the day so that I can get some stuff done around the house (although he's been fussing a lot during the day, so it's been tough recently) but I love these times.
• Jamie absolutely HATES being changed.  Or undressed.  Or messed with in general.  The joke in our house right now is that, instead of Jamie getting a diaper change, it's actually "dipping his hands in acid."  He SCREAMS bloody murder whenever you have to change him.  And don't even get me started on bath time.  This poor kid acts like we're slowly severing his toes from his feet.  We're guessing that this has to do with him not wanting to be cold, but his reactions to being even partially naked are starting to get laughable.
• Though I know it is common for babies, this kid makes a LOT of dirty diapers.  He needs to be changed every time we eat, which is 7-8 times a day, PLUS another two or three times outside of eating times.  He also has had a few explosive poos... which has been more humorous than upsetting, thankfully.  The only time it gets frustrating is when Jamie has a dirty diaper before, during, and after he eats... mainly just because he screams so much.
• Jamie's had only a couple nicknames so far.  For the first couple weeks we called him Squeaky, because he'd make little squeaking noises in his sleep.  I've settled in with him and call him Punkin, or sometimes Punkin Butt.  I'm not sure where that's coming from, but that's what he's become to me!
• We've found a few things that soothe him when he's fussing.  First, he's a sucker, so the pacifier has become a friend of ours.  He also likes his rocker because it has a vibration setting on it, which he likes about half the time (the other half he just gives you a WTF look).  I've also figured out the exact way he likes to be rocked in order to go to sleep: in the recliner, at a very hard rock (I've been afraid of breaking the chair a couple times), and when we're standing he likes a side-to-side sway, probably about 100-110 degree swing or so.  I'm sure this is going to destroy my back, but he loves it.

Tongue tie fixed, bottom lip can now flange out.
Top lip is tied still: see how it curls under when he sucks?

One thing I'll never, ever forget is that Jamie had a tongue tie, and we're having him checked for a lip tie next week.  This fact has led to 6 weeks of painful gas and poor eating for him, meaning pain and lack of sleep for me.  Essentially, the flap of skin (if you can call it skin!) that connects his upper lip to his gum line is somehow wrong, either too tight or misaligned somehow, which prevents him from flanging his upper lip when he latches to eat.  This allows him to suck in a LOT of air while he eats, leading to the painful gassiness.  It also means that he has to work a lot harder to get food, so he tires quickly and therefore doesn't eat as much as he'd like.  So while he falls asleep within minutes of starting to eat and seems satisfied, he quickly starts fussing within the next hour because he is still hungry.  This has made the last 6 weeks incredibly challenging for us all.

The biggest source of frustration with this issue has been the lack of attention being paid to it.  I knew from the first week we were at home that something was wrong with Jamie's eating, but I couldn't figure out what.  I started with the thing you're supposed to start with: the lactation helpline at the hospital.  I tried explaining the situation to the consultant, letting her know that Jamie was a fussy eater, and that he seemed to always be hungry but wouldn't eat for more than a few minutes at a time. She then asked the question I'd grow to loathe hearing: "Is he gaining weight?"  This is, apparently, the only thing that matters when it comes to eating.  If the baby is gaining weight he's considered "thriving" and that's pretty much the end of the conversation.  So I started doing my own research, which was a bad idea.  Good old "Dr. Google" was giving me all kinds of ridiculous information about what could potentially be wrong.  There were the usual suspects, such as something in my diet that Jamie was reacting to, to really scary things like infections, to issues with me such as low supply.  But nothing seemed to fit all the symptoms he was having.

Thankfully my sister has an army of mommies on her side, so she enlisted their help in brainstorming what the solution could be.  Several women responded and suggested the ties.  I started researching, and it seemed like every symptom Jamie had could be explained by the ties.  So, I found a really awesome place in the Highlands called Mamahood, which hosted breastfeeding groups led by a lactation consultant and decided to take Jamie for a session, hoping to get an answer.  Now, let me just say again that breastfeeding has never been a "beautiful, amazing thing" to me.  Yes, I am dedicated to breastfeeding, but the idea of going to a breastfeeding group was a little scary.  But I knew that going might help me figure out what was going on with Jamie, so I signed up for a session.

When I arrived it was exactly as I expected: about 25 women sitting in a circle on the floor breastfeeding together.  But the great thing about it was that they did a pre- and post-feeding weight, so we could know what baby was eating during the feeding.  For Jamie, they did a naked weight as well since it was his first session.  He weighed in at 7 lbs, 4 oz, which was right on track for healthy weight gain.  During the hour-long session Jamie ate just under 2 oz, which is on the low-end of normal.  So both those facts were somewhat reassuring.  The other nice thing was that the lactation consultant wanted to meet with each of us, find out what issues we were having, and give her advice. I explained to her that we'd been curious about the ties, so she took Jamie in her arms and he started fussing, and she said, "Well, I can see his tongue tie from here."  So, there was that.  She checked his suck, which is apparently extremely strong.  She then made a couple recommendations of pediatric dentists who could fix the tongue issue and investigate the lip.

Long story short, I called one of the dentists and made an appointment.  When I arrived they quickly snipped the tongue tie, which was nerve-racking as a new mother.  Unfortunately that dentist did not do anything with lip ties, so I had to make another appointment at a different dentist for that.  And that appointment is next week on Tuesday.  It was really upsetting that we can't get in till then, but I guess that's how it is.  In the meantime we're doing whatever we can to help Jamie cope with the excessive gas pain, and I've continued feeding Jamie every 2-3 hours just as we did when he was a newborn.  Because I'm still waking him to feed him during the day he's continued to grow healthily, and weighed over 8 lbs earlier this week.

Side note: let me just vent here that there is a TON of information online about tongue ties.  It seems that everyone knows what it is, and it's such an easy fix that it's not really given a second thought.  Lip ties are completely different, and there's not a ton of information out about it.  On top of that, while many doctors/dentists are okay with the tongue tie procedure there are many others (our pediatrician included) who think it is unnecessary.  This is unbearably frustrating when you've got a baby at home screaming in pain and everyone tells you to stop worrying and relax.

I hope the appointment on Tuesday goes well.  I'm going to be relieved if the tie is the issue, as it'll explain all the problems we've had with him for the last 6 weeks.  But this also means that he'll need to have a laser procedure to correct it, which will make this mama somewhat distraught (watching them snip his tongue tie was traumatic enough!).  But if the dentist looks at his lip and says it isn't bad enough to require the procedure I'll have to figure out a different solution to help him.  It's been really rough the last 6 weeks; there have been a lot of tears from all of us, but soon enough we'll know what is going on.

But it's time for Jamie's last meal of the night, which he takes with Matt from the bottle.  Then it's off to bed for all of us... fingers crossed Jamie sleeps well.  He was getting 4-5 hour stretches up till recently; I think he is working through a growth spurt currently, so he eats more and sleeps less.  He's already outgrown most of his newborn clothing, so soon enough we'll be in 0-3's!  I can't believe how quickly it's all flying by.