And Then There Was Joy.

I realized after I posted yesterday that I hadn’t said much about how we are doing. We are all doing really well emotionally, physically, and mentally. I usually can get a long nap in the afternoon, and Will is only waking once at night, so that gives me two decent chunks of sleep at night. We use his swing a lot for naps and sometimes at night too:

Last night he slept a long time both before and after his feeding and woke up really happy. He was all smiles, so I thought I’d take the chance to see if I could catch any of them on camera. He smiles at people a lot, but it is not alway easy to catch them in a picture. But this morning he was very obliging:

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I thought you all would enjoy some updated pictures. Here is Will discovering the joys of toys:

Here he is on a recent trip to the Koala park:

One of these is a little blurry, but I wanted to show off how strong he is:

Here he is getting to know GG (Great Grandma Garman):

And in case you are in doubt about the red hair, take a look at this:

Will is 6 weeks old today:

And here is a picture Elise took of me and Will and one of Elise:

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Well, I thought it was time to update on how we are doing. Will is almost 4 weeks old and growing bigger every day. He is starting to get past his newborn phase of sleeping almost constantly, meaning he is awake more. Unfortunately he is also grumpy sometimes too. He tends to have a fussy period most evening before bed, but once we get him to go to sleep he will usually sleep fairly well between feedings. Some nights are hard though, with Will not wanting to go back to sleep in his cradle. After his 6 am feed he won’t ever go back to sleep in his cradle, but will sleep if I keep him with me. But even then he grunts continuously as if he is uncomfortable. But after his next feed he acts fine, so I’m not sure why certain times of the day he doesn’t seem to feel well, but I believe it is fairly normal. Physically he is quite strong. When he is awake and happy he will lift his head all by himself and look around. He loves to look at ceilings for some reason, and every once in awhile will flash mommy a concious smile.
Elise seems to be adjusting well, though she has some impatience when she would like me to do something and I am busy with Will. She spends a lot of time on the computer as that is my back-up for now to keep her busy while I try to get a little rest in the afternoons. She is excited about our schedule changes in the next few weeks as the fall activities start up. I am just hoping I have enough energy by them to keep up with her busy schedule.
I am doing alright emotionally, though it depends on how much sleep I get. If I don’t get enough at night or miss my nap during the day, I get a bit overwhelmed with life. This week I am dealing with the beginnings of a breastfeeding infection and that has made me quite miserable yesterday and this morning when I woke up. I sent Elise home with John’s mom, so I could sleep more today and I am feeling a bit better now. Will was extra grumpy yesterday too, so we’ll see how he does today. I can not wait until Will decides he can go a longer stretch at night so that I can wake up somewhat refreshed in the morning rather than exhausted.

Here are some pictures so that you can see how chubby Will has gotten. There are also a couple with John’s grandma Lein who visited at the beginning of August.

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Will was weighed today and he was 10 pounds 3 ounces! That’s over a pound of weight gain in one week.

In other news, he was also circumcised today. I’ve never seen him as mad as he was this afternoon when it was done. Even nursing didn’t calm him down. But he seems OK now. Hopefully it won’t disturb his sleep tonight.

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It is amazing that it has almost been two weeks since Will was born. I am still amazed at how quickly life can change. I am doing wonderfully with emotional issues right now. The anti-depressants seem to be doing their job and I am coping well each day and night. I still feel so far away from accomplishing much in each day, but I know that will just take time. Will so far is an easy-going baby. He is usually quite content even when awake. He already looks bigger to me, and I am excited to see him grow and develop each day. I know that in a year’s time I will be looking back and wondering where all this time went and how he changed so quickly. [...]

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Will is one week old today. We took him in for his first check-up. He now weighs 9 lbs. 0.5 oz. (so 1 1/2 oz. over his birthweight). He measured 21 in. long, but I’m sure that is just a difference in measuring styles, as he was 21 1/2 in. at birth. Everything else looks good. His heart sounds really good, with no signs of murmurs. His eyes, ears, and nose all passed inspection as well. The doctor thought his color had improved, but since it had been still elevated at last check we had to go get it checked again. I don’t know yet what the number is.

Here’s a picture of Will being a good boy in the doctor’s office:

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Sorry it has taken me so long to update. Today has been a hectic day. We took Will outside on the porch this morning for some “sunbathing” before we headed to the clinic for the bilirubin test. We didn’t get a phone call until later that his level is now 14, so he is improving. We are still encouraged to get him in the sun and keep nursing well. This afternoon Will has been nursing almost every hour, so I think we have that part under control.

As for me, I was much better today than I have been. Most of the day I have felt pretty close to normal with just a small twinge of nervousness left. I should be past the hump, though it makes me nervous to say that, hoping I won’t have another down. But for right now, I can look at our future without being overwhelmed. I know it will be awhile before we find what is normal around here, but I am not scared to work toward that point anymore. I actually spent some of my day doing some things that needed to be done, but I had not found time or energy to do before. I did several loads of laundry and cleaned my kitchen. It feels good to begin to be the manager of my home again. It will be awhile before I am completely on top of things (if I ever am), and I have realized that mentally I still feel very much behind. I’m sure the functioning on such little amounts of sleep will make me feel slow in my thinking for awhile.

Elise is home with us, and doing really well with the adjustments. I have had to tell her “don’t” several times today: i.e. “Don’t run next to Will,” “Don’t swing that by Will,” “Don’t throw things in the house, you might hit Will,” etc. If you ask her, she will tell you that Will is supposed to take care of her, and she is supposed to take care of him. Hopefully, they will both put that into practice eventually. :)

We had lots of visitors today, but I was still able to sneak in a short nap. It is amazing how our bodies adjust to such little sleep. John and I were both up until about 1:30 last night as Will was not cooperating with night-time schedule. My mom will be here again tonight, so we should get sleep, but I hope that she does as well.

Here are some pictures:

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Well, I was disappointed today that I seemed to have a worse day than yesterday. It wasn’t a terrible day, it was just that my nervousness was around most of the day. I think hopefully I am hitting some sort of hump that I need to get over and thankfully the medicine is keeping it in the manageability level. It was also not relaxing being at the clinic, especially when we were sent to the lab. It was just too close to some of the memories of Emma’s first week of life. Just recently the nervousness has begun to subside so I am enjoying my “afternoon break,” as I am beginning to see these times of normalcy. I did sleep really well last night, deep enough that it took some work to crawl out of bed to feed Will. I also got some semblance of a nap after lunch. Elise came home about 3:00, and though I was worried how I would handle an extra kid, she has actually been a help as she brings things closer to being “normal” around here. She also eagerly helps me run go get things for Will. We gave him a sponge bath as well, and she enjoyed washing his hair with me. We also got her first impression as to Will’s “body.” (Body is a term Elise uses for bottom.) When I removed his diaper to wash him, she laughed and said, “he has a funny body.” “That is what little boys look like,” I told her. “He is different than you isn’t he?” “Yep,” she said, and that was it.
An interesting thing did happen last night. I woke at 5:30 (unfortunately right in the middle of Will’s longest sleeping stretch) because of a terrible dream I had about him. He had stopped breathing. Thinking back on the dream as I lay in bed, I realized that I had actually not called his name though, it had been Emma’s name instead. I was also not feeling the anxiety levels then either, meaning that this dream was not pulled out of some hormone induced anxiety, but rather out of my past. It shows perhaps a fear that I am harboring in my soul. I did get out of bed and check Will to reassure myself that it was just a dream. I had a hard time going back to sleep after that though. But as I lay there praying and thinking, I realized something very important. During our name choosing, I had been working so hard to choose a name that meant something special because Emma’s name had such an important meaning. Of course, it was just girl’s names I was looking at, as we’ve had our boy’s name picked out for years. Yesterday, I was reminded by Nana (John’s mom) that William means “strong protector.” This morning as I reflected on my fears and memories, I realized that God had picked out the perfect name for our son years before we needed it. Instead of thinking of Will as a protector (though I hope he is), it is a reminder to me that God is our protector. Hopefully this will be a constant reminder to me to trust God and leave Will in his capable hands. Thankfully, God has been gracious to not allow the anxiety from this depression to settle on worries about Will. Otherwise it would be harder for me to rationally deal with it.

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The pediatrician at Willow Creek had asked us to get Will’s weight and skin color checked today, so we took him by the clinic. He weighed 8 lbs. 12.5 oz. (2 1/2 oz. under birth weight), which is normal for 4 days old. Dr. Youmans said he was a little yellow so while we were there we had them do a bilirubin check in the lab. We got a call late this afternoon to let us know that Will’s level was 17! That is very high. So he is sitting without clothes on in front of the window while there is a bit of sunshine left today. Tomorrow morning we’ll take him back to get checked again to see if they are going down or up. Please pray that Will’s eating and the sun can lower his levels, otherwise he’ll have to go under the hospital lights (not a bad thing, but just an extra thing to handle and work around). I’ll let you know what the level is when we get back tomorrow.

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If you’d like to see the picture the hospital took of Will go to:

http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage_view.asp?URLID=1J2Q1E0K5R

There are four different pictures you can see there.

This afternoon, John and I decided we will take Will out to my parent’s house as I am doing much better at the moment. So, if you had been planning on stopping by, I’m sorry to mess that up. We’d still love to see you any time this week. I’m not sure what time we will be home this afternoon either, but probably not too late.

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