Parenthood

Even without a baby at home, I am already feeling the impacts of motherhood and realizing that some funky stuff comes along after evacuating a baby from your belly.  I won't get too graphic, but did you know your legs swell up and your toes look like pig's feet?  And the way the swelling goes down is through excessive sweating.  My feet sweat ALL THE TIME.  And apparently night sweats are common.  I've had them every night, and last night I basically woke up in a pool.  Awesome.  Going to need to change those sheets today.

Anyway, enough about that.  Even though Ryan isn't quite home yet, I am still up at least twice during the night to "feed him."  I'm sure having him here will have its own challenges, but at least there won't be bottle-washing involved... but there will be diapers.  Hmm.  I will get to stare at an incredibly adorable baby though instead of the wall, so looking forward to that!!

I'm heeling up well and getting around better.  Able to bend more and walk a little faster.  I went in to the office yesterday to wrap some things up and I feel so much better with a load of that off my mind.  Everyone has jumped in to cover for me and is doing such a great job.  It is really weird to think I'm going to be home for the next 8-10 weeks.  But it's going to be AWESOME.  I hope.

Ryan is doing very well.  He eats 8 times a day (every 3 hours) and each day they are increasing the # of those feedings he can do by mouth (and without the feeding tube).  He is up to 5 today!  Just 3 more to go and he'll be able to come home.  I've been able to feed him myself the last 2 nights, and hoping to try twice today.  He takes the bottle like a champ.  We've found he's not much of a burper though, either that or we are incredibly bad at it.  When we saw him last night though, he cried really hard - more than his usual whimper - it about broke my heart!  But it felt amazing when he calmed down as soon as I held him, or let him hold onto my finger.  Pretty sure daddy and I are already whipped.

They're allowing us to change his diaper, take his temperature, and change his clothes.  It's much easier now that he's out of the isolette, but we are still experiencing the "holy crap, he's so little, are you sure we're doing it right and won't break him???" feelings.  Especially since he is still under 4.5 lbs!  They trust us though and every day we gain more confidence and feel more like the "experienced" NICU parents.  It's neat seeing the other babies in there too.  We obviously can't ask many questions about them, but I get really excited when I see one of them has moved out of their isolette or gone home.  I never would have thought that the NICU would have so many babies in it though.  Sadly, it's nice to know we're not alone.  Not being on the Post-partum floor during my recovery made me feel like he was the only NICU baby ever born and I was the only one ever having had an emergency C-section.  Not a great feeling.

Anyway, Brad and I are running around like crazy every afternoon trying to get things done and still get over to the hospital in time to see him.  We're not always on time, but I guess that's parenthood.  I told Brad I'm already feeling like a failure of a parent to not get to him on time, but I guess there will be plenty of time to feel that way :)  We got the house sprayed for spiders today, are getting the car seat installed this afternoon, and will have the carpets cleaned tomorrow.  The baby monitor is hooked up, and the pack 'n play is ready to go.  Not really sure where all of this big stuff is going to end up, but we'll figure that out later.

Okay, I better stop now and get some more things done.  Hope you enjoy reading our updates.  I appreciate all of your comments and cheers for Ryan!