Our first day home

We were discharged from the hospital on Friday, May 25th. We managed to get 3/4 of the way home before Alex woke up hungry in the car, so we got to listen to crying the rest of our trip home. We managed to get through the evening ok, with Dan only making one trip to Safeway for food and formula, when we noticed around 9pm that Alex had some green goop in his left eye. He was really fussy, wouldn't breastfeed at all, and wouldn't sleep either.

We tryed until 10 or 1030 to console him, but no matter how many times we fed him, changed him or rocked him there was no soothing him. We even tried the "he'll cry himself to sleep method", but this just got Mom crying too. We tried a soother (even they are poo-poo'd in the first 6 weeks), and there was no luck there either. By this time as well, we had changed his clothes at least twice due him peeing all over the place (we hadn't quite figured out the trick to preventing this). Dan got peed on once, and so did I.

At 1030 I finally had Dan go to the store (a second time) to get a thermometer to make sure that Alex didn't have a fever. While he was gone, Alex started crying which started me leaking breast milk. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but he refused to breastfeed despite the milk coming out like Niagra Falls. So, I spent a good half hour walking with Alex in one hand, and holding a bottlein my other hand to my breast collecting the leaking breast milk.

Alex, didn't have a fever, but I called the Maternity ward anyway. They told us just to go to the clinic in the morning, which we did, and found that Alex has his first eye infection. Alex peed on himself once at this point,which helped us give him his first bath since he got home. This went on without much fuss, and was our one success. After much more fighting, we finally gave up on breastfeeding and just gave hime formula for his feeding at 12am...It then took us another hour to get him to sleep.

We finally crawled into bed at 1am, and just as I fell asleep, Alex woke up because he was wet. So I changed him, then went back to sleep. 20 minutes later, he was awake because he was poopy, so I changed him again. At this point he peed on me again, and necessitated another outfit change. We changed his outfit 5 times in 12 hours. It was time for another feeding, so I fed him a large amount of formula to make him sleepy, and once he was asleep, I crawled back into bed.

This finally worked. Alex slept until 545am, when I woke him for his next feeding. He ate, then went right back to sleep, and slept again until 830. When I came back to bed at 6, Dan asked me what time it was, and when I told him, he got mad at me for not waking him up to help out...I figured it was better that only one of us wasn't getting any sleep instead of both of us.....and then I said "you get to watch him while I sleep today" which Dan was in agreement, and did for me on Saturday.

Saturday went a bit smoother, and we finally got the breastfeeding going again..We still have to top up with formula, but we will be weaning Alex over the week to 2 weeks to get him to breastfeed exclusively. We are slowly adjusting, and hope to have a regular routine in about 2 weeks. Despite the tears (mine and Alex's), we are very happy he is here. Ruby is his little "nana", bringing him toys when he cries, and protecting him from anybody that walks by the house. She also has to be right beside him at all times when he is in the living room with us. She is exciteable, but we hope that will change soon.

Keep checking in...I will post some pics when time permits..right now one feeding runs into the next most times, so I don't get much of a break (20 minutes max).