Three Weeks Old

Our Beautiful Karina

Karina is now three weeks old and things have been extremely tough for us all. My parents have remained live-ins to help us out. Tom's mom has been caring for Karina 2 to 3 nights per week and Beth has started to come for about 8 hours per week. I don't think we'd be alive without all of them right now.

I continue to have a lot of post-op pain, to wake up drenched in sweat any time I sleep more than a couple of hours and to have virtually non-existent stamina. I'm also still bleeding, having some post-partum "blues" and am exhausted from pumping 7-8 times each day. Karina's still too heavy for me to hold and my legs have only finally started to look almost normal, since I've been resting more after Tom and my mom literally banned me from coming downstairs more than once or twice a day. This means a lot of work for everyone else...feeding Karina, changing diapers and rocking Karina to sleep, not to mention doing laundry, cleaning dishes, going to the store, cooking (or rather picking up take-out.) My limitations have made things very tough for Tom, my mom and my dad.

On a positive note, it seems that all of the pumping has paid off, because my milk has finally "come in," and we've been able to stop the formula and feed Karina entirely with my breast milk (in a bottle still, of course.) The only down side to this is perhaps Karina's stool is even more watery, because while formula is somewhat constipating, breast milk is known for producing loose stool.

Karina during one of her more peaceful moments sleeping in her Pack 'N Play

Karina tries to be an easy baby, but seems unable to feel good much of the time. She's a good eater, and sometimes falls to sleep easily after eating, but many times she seems to be having some abdominal pain and this wakes her up. According to The Happiest Baby On The Block, this behavior that people call colic, is actually the infant longing for the womb. So, the author doesn't believe it's really abdominal pain, but rather a reaction to the outside world not being like the womb. So we've tried music with womb sounds, sounds of a waterfall and hair dryer, an air purifier for white noise and jiggling her to sleep (she sleeps in her Pack 'N Play because it's easier to jiggle.) She has had one time where she fell asleep in the swing, but otherwise she's not as dramatically soothed by the swing as we'd hoped. We've also tried carrying Karina around in a baby sling in case she's in need of more physical contact, because I am still unable to spend much time with her...I'm either pumping, eating or sleeping. She definitely doesn't meet the true criteria for colic because she probably only cries a total of 15 minutes per day, not 3 hours per day (to be diagnosed with colic the infant must cry at least 3 hours per day for at least 3 days each week for at least 3 weeks). She's not even close! But she just can't seem to be peaceful much of the time.

House Frau Tom, doing laundry with Karina in the sling

As I mentioned earlier, Karina has terribly loose stools (read brown water) which I can't imagine feel good, and she also seems to have an exorbitant amount of excess gas...both burping and passing gas. I can't help but wonder if the antibiotics she had to take in the hospital completely wiped out her "good" intestinal flora, kind of like C. Diff (for you medical types out there), but I guess it doesn't matter anyway because we're not allowed to give her anything that might replace the good flora, like yogurt with acidophilus and other active cultures or medication. I've also cut out a bunch of things from my diet, in case that's affecting Karina's digestion. I'm no longer eating onions, garlic, spices, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts or anything with caffeine including chocolate. Which basically means I can hardly eat anything...especially food that is pre-made or ordered-out. I'm limiting my dairy intake as well...to about one serving per day. We're using "gas drops" although we've heard they don't do anything. I guess at this point we're so desperate to help Karina be a happier baby, we'll try anything.