Week 2

Elijah Cole experienced his first hurricane yesterday and he is 2 weeks old today! :)

We went for our 2nd doctor's visit yesterday. Eli weights about 8lbs and 4oz now. He had slight jaundice last week but it's going away nicely... so we don't need to put him in the sun anymore. His belly button came off! Our doula asked if we want to keep it... it's still sitting on the changing table haha... we are not sure if we want to keep it still lol. He spits up a lot and seems to be very uncomfortable during feedings so Dr thinks he may have acid reflux (poor baby!) and suggested that we put 2 tsp of rice cereal in every 4 oz of milk when we feed him. This will thicken the milk and helps the milk stay in his tummy. We tried it yesterday and I think it's working. He doesn't arch his back anymore when we feed him and the doula said he spits up less. Eli also developed a diaper rash over the past few days :( doula blames it on my breast milk because breast fed babies poop a lot more than formula fed babies. So we are now taking a break from breast milk (I've just been freezing them) and giving him formula. It's been about 2 days he's only been on formula and I think we are going to give him breast milk today. His rash is getting better and hopefully it won't come back.

Breastfeeding- pretty much I'm a breastfeeding failure. He wouldn't latch on at all now. We think it's because he is used to bottle feeding. He has no patience to latch on and work for his food. He probably has nipple confusion too... sighs... Every time I try to breastfeed him he would cry hysterically and simply refuses... we are not sure what to do anymore...

Pumping- the good news is that I've been pumping and my milk supply has been increasing every day. A week ago, I was only pumping 11oz per day... getting about 1oz per session (2oz during my morning session). Now, I am pumping about 24 oz and getting about 2 - 4 oz per session depending on the time of the day and how much liquid I drank. I pump every 2 - 3 hours and I definitely notice a decrease in my supply when I stretch it longer than 3 hours. It's A LOT of work to pump 9 times a day. There are so many pumping parts to wash and pumping itself is so time consuming! I try to pump for 20 minutes each session and including getting the parts ready and cleaning up it takes about 30 minutes each session. With the doula here, she cleans and boils the parts but I can't imagine doing it all myself after she leaves. That's why I've been trying to get Eli to breastfeed but it's a total disaster.

Recovery- I still have a belly! lol I ordered belly bandit and it should arrive on Monday... I'm hoping it'll work hehe. My fingers are still swollen.. can you believe it? Good news is that my bleeding pretty much stopped this week. I'm recovery well and I feel normal. I am more tired than usual... perhaps it's all the middle of the night pumping sessions. I try to nap in between my pumping sessions during the day but it's hard since it's so time consuming. Everyone is telling me that I need to lie down during the day but it's really hard since I pump 9 times a day and I still have to get up when the doula needs help with the baby (i.e. when she is cooking).

Countdown- even though the doula is great for middle of the night feedings, we can't wait for her to leave! We can't wait to be able to do things the way we want and don't have to listen to her nag (Danny doesn't have to listen to her because she only speaks Chinese but he does have to deal with my bad mood afterwards lol) On our mac, we have this countdown app showing how many days till she leaves and as of today- 17 days :)


Community- I love Community! Danny downloaded all the episodes and we have been watching it during our down time :) My favorite character is Abed.