2 Month Check Up

We went to the Doctor for Ryan's check up and two month immunizations yesterday. He weighed
12 lbs 6 oz., he had a head circumference of 40 cm, and he was 23 inches long. Everything went well.

Ryan has really dry skin and a touch of eczema on his knees and elbows. We've switched to Cetaphil, for washing him with and I'm using Aveeno and hydrocortisone cream for the bad spots. I hope it's not itchy, but it's not like he can tell me.

Bill's gone to Alberta

Bill's gone to Alberta to work for a month. I dropped him off at the Airport this morning and I feel lonely already. :( It's going to be hard to deal with Ryan by myself with no breaks. He'll be back in 4 weeks though...

Baby Firsts

So I figure I'm going to try to start keeping track of Ryan's developmental milestones on this site. I haven't really remembered so ar, but I'm going to try to start now. It's hard to keep track of the first time a baby does something. Like a smile for instance. Lots of times the first time they smile, it's really gas.

Anyway, so far Ryan is smiling, and has started to hold up his head. when he cries, it sounds like he's saying Mama. OK, I guess it more like Maaaaaaaaaaa Maaaaaaaaaaaa. :) So I'm going to hold off on counting that as his first word. :)

RSV

We're Sick

Respiratory Syncytial Virus
Bill went and infected me and Ryan with what we thought was a cold this week. We went to go see Ryan's pediatrician on Tuesday to look at Ryan. He suggested I take him to the hospital to get him started on an IV, since we still weren't sure whether he has CPT1. Ryan was also not eating well, and was very sleepy. Normally most parents would say these symptoms were due to the cold, but we wanted to play it safe, so off to the hospital we went. I went home packed my bags, and off we went.

Ryan and I stayed in that hospital from Tuesday through Friday. on Tuesday night the nurses tried to start him on an IV and that has to have been the most harrowing experience of my life. The poked and prodded him for close to an hour. trying to start it alternately in each of his hands and feet, and then tried each again. Ryan cried and whimpered, he was so tired and sick, and weak, that as soon as they stopped with the tourniquet and the needle, he would fall asleep. Then he would wake up crying again, when they tried another spot. Finally they decided to shave the side of his head and put the needle in his head. Three nurses and one doctor later.

They did a test on him while we were there and it turned out that Ryan (likely Bill and I as well) had RSV. Respiratory Syncytial Virus, which is pretty common. That was one of the hardest weeks of my life. It's so hard to watch your baby suffer. His nose was all stuffed up, he was congested, and had a phlegmy cough. I couldn't get him to blow his nose or to cough up the phlegm. The best we could do was to put saline drops in his nose, and try to get him to sneeze it out. His appetite went down to half of normal, and he was sleeping all the time. I had to work pretty hard to get him to smile. He was miserable most of the time he was awake. Bill had to work most of the week, but he came to the hospital to relieve me at night, and to bring me food. I was sick too with the same thing this entire time, and sleeping in his room on a fold out chair. It was no picnic for me either.

But the doctor finally said we should remove the IV, and we went home on Friday.

More testing

Dr. Potter called and spoke with Bill letting us know that the final test results were negative for CPT1. Although he threw a wrench in the works by letting us know that the most definitive test would be a skin patch test. So I brought Ryan back to McMaster today for testing.

Dr. Potter cut a piece of skin from Ryan's thigh, and they are going to culture it, and run enzyme tests on it. Since Ryan wasn't feeling well today, he's getting sick, Dr. Potter decided it would be a good idea to run all of the bloodwork again as well. That way we would see if any of his levels changed when he is well as opposed to sick. In a way Ryan getting sick is a good thing, because we will know for sure at the end of this whether he has it or not.

So there is another test, and another waiting period. It will be at least another month before we find out definitively.

Breastfeeding

So my breastfeeding has not been going well. While we were in the hospital Ryan dropped a significant amount of weight, 1 lb, so the nurses recommended that we supplement his feeding with formula. So we were feeding him formula, and I was expressing breast milk when I was able to, and feeding him from a bottle. By the time my milk came in he had eaten more from a bottle than from the breast. I have a very lazy baby. He's cute, but lazy. He wanted to eat the easy way, not the hard way. Every time I would try to breastfeed him, he would get so frustrated and start to cry. Which always made me upset. I saw a lactation consultant in the hospital, and a few times after I was discharged, but nothing was working. It doesn't help that we have a significant size discrepancy between my breasts and his mouth.

I tried using a tube inserted with the nipple, several types of holds, and positions, as well as a plastic nipple cover. In the end it proved so frustrating and stressful for me and the baby, that I decided I would just give him my breast milk from the bottle. So I started expressing breast milk for every feeding, and giving it to him from the bottle. My husband went out and rented me a good electric pump from Shopper's Drug Mart, because I wasn't getting any rest using my manual one. It's worked out well, because I'm now able to pump every 6 hours for 30 mins, and get enough food for two feedings. He eats about 4 ounces every 3 hours. I figure that even if I can't breast feed him, at least he's getting the benefits of the breast milk.

There will be no bottle for my next child - not for at least the first 6 weeks.

New Year's Eve

So, we had been trying to decide what to do for New Year's Eve, but eventually we decided it would be too expensive and just stayed home. So on New Year's Eve 2007, I watched movies, ate a nice dinner, had some wine, and kissed my two favourite men at midnight.

Not too shabby.