Four Weeks

My little Avery is 4 weeks old today!  Hard to imagine it's already been that long.  But at the same time it feels like forever.  Breastfeeding was really bad at the beginning but I'm glad we stuck with it.  Basically the people who tell you it's never supposed to hurt are full of crap.  Unless you're used to having someone suctioned to your nipples 8-12 times a day for 5-40 minutes each time, you're going to have pain!  I got blisters, which popped, then bled, scabbed over, and bled again.  Then eventually it stopped hurting for the most part.  But it took about 12 days for me.  It was so bad around day 5 that I dreaded every time Avery was hungry.  I got plugged ducts like crazy in the first few days after my milk came in, and even got a plugged nipple.  Jon had to give me a blessing and I had to take tylenol and let Avery try and nurse on that side to fix it.  It took a few hours but it finally unplugged and felt much better.  But yes, nursing is a struggle in the beginning!  I'm just lucky that Avery had a great latch right off the bat so I didn't have to deal with that too.

But for all the pain and craziness at the beginning, it's pretty great now.  It's still annoying when I manage to leak through nursing pads and 3 layers of clothing without noticing, but I can deal with that.  It's a great time to bond with Avery and I actually really like it.  I love how she flexes her fingers and toes while she's eating and rests her top hand on whichever breast she's feeding on.  It's a very intimate and cuddly thing and I love it.  I also love knowing that my body can provide her with everything she needs, and all I have to do is keep eating and drinking.  So amazing!

Sleeping on my chest

By this point Avery is most likely weighing in around 10lbs.  We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow so we'll find out the official number, but according to our crappy home scale that's about right.  She's super long and keeps growing like crazy.  Some of the 3 month sleepers don't even fit her any more.  Others would fit her, if her feet weren't so dang huge that they don't fit in the sleeper feet!  The 0-3 month onesies are too short in the crotch but she's swimming in the larger sizes.  Yay for tall babies.  I hope she'll grow up to be a supermodel haha.

Sucking her thumb!

She's been a pretty great baby for the most part.  She sleeps well and through lots of noise.  Avery loves tummy time.  She spent a whole half hour on the jungle play mat by herself just cooing and looking around the other day.  She can already hold her head up a LOT and for quite a long time.  It's something to see.  She even scoots forward a bit too.  I have a feeling she'll be crawling and walking before we know it!

I, however, have felt a bit trapped.  Having a tiny human who can't really communicate or interact much with you but who depends on you for everything is super hard.  When they say newborns eat every 1.5-3 hours, they mean from the start of one feeding to the start of another, meaning that if your feedings last 20-30 minutes you may only get an hour between them.  An hour is not a lot of time to do anything, let alone "sleep while baby is sleeping".  I hate that mantra so much.

Basically my life this past month has been sleeping for maybe 2 hours at a time, nursing constantly, eating and drinking constantly because I'm starving, and trying to comfort a gassy baby.  I was getting worn down and feeling guilty about my resentment that was building towards this tiny human, and so Jon suggested I take a few hours just to myself to get out and do whatever I wanted to do.  His Valentine's day gift to me.  I left him with some pumped milk to feed her if she got hungry, and went out to do a few errands.  It wasn't like I was doing anything super fun, but I love running errands and it's so much easier to do them without a baby in tow.  I felt freer than I had in a long while, and yet I missed her so much.  We're working on keeping my life in balance from now on, so that I don't need to feel trapped.  It'll be better once she's a bit bigger, I'm sure.

In summary, there are things that suck, and things that are amazing, but I wouldn't trade being a mom for the world.  It is the best thing.