Our First Week at Home

October 29th-November 4th

I ended our birth story/hospital stay where we had gotten home from the hospital and Brent kicked back in the recliner with little man in one arm and a beer in the other watching Monday Night Football.  

We had several visitors that stopped by for about an hour or so to see our little Carter that first night.  My mom, stepdad, sisters, step-grandparents, aunt Ellen Kaye & cousins Bailey and Blake all stopped by for a turn to hold him.  The house got pretty loud for awhile, the way it does when all the family gets together, but Carter slept right through it all!  Little did we know what was to come.

Carter had been such a good baby at the hospital.  I honestly don't remember him crying except immediately following his birth.  He was a great sleeper and we had to wake him every three hours with skin-to-skin to nurse him.  But when we got him home that first night, it was a whole different story.  I don't know if it was the circumcision being that day or just the change of scenery, but he wasn't happy!  I don't think any of us got a wink of sleep that night!  We later found out that he may have been hungry and we just didn't know that we should feed him every time he gave feeding cues...I so wish someone would have gone over all of that with us in the hospital!  

Anyways, we had to be up pretty early to be back at the hospital the next morning to re-test his jaundice levels.  I remember being scared to death to put him in the car seat and drive to the hospital again after the night that we had.  I just knew he would cry the entire time like he did the night before and everyone would be looking at me and I would not be able to help him.  But I guess the night with no sleep caught up to him, and the second he hit that car seat, he was out like a light!  He even slept through being undressed and pricked for the jaundice test!  (His levels had gone down, so we were thrilled with the results!)

We then had an appointment with the lactation consultant.  She weighed Carter and he had stayed the same from when we had been discharged from the hospital the evening before (around 6lb 14oz), which was good.  Then, I nursed him for about 5 minutes while she gave me a few pointers, and she weighed him again to see how much he was eating.  I was worried because he was not nursing for very long stretches of time, but when she weighed him, he had gained almost an ounce in that tiny little nursing session!  The lactation consultant was amazed at what an efficient little nurser he was.  She told us that we should be feeding him when he was hungry and not worrying about the clock.  That made me feel really guilty about the night before & I realized all that time he was crying he was probably just hungry...it was definitely my first of many parenting fails!

Then it was a quick stop at the pharmacy & our new little family of three was headed home!  Brent stuck around the house with me most of that first week.  He made a few trips that week to the deer stand to do some bow hunting though so I could get used to being alone with my little man, which is really scary in the beginning!  But we made it through somehow.

My mom came over that night to show me how to give Carter his first bath.  I was a bit scared of the umbilical cord stump and his fresh circumcision so she helped me out!  He absolutely hated that first bath; he screamed the entire time!  

The next day was Halloween, so we got to dress him in a cute little Boo! onesie and pumpkin bib that I had bought for him at a second hand store just in case he happened to make an early appearance.  His grandma brought him a sucker and his aunt Ellen Kaye brought him a dollar; the sweet little guy didn't even have to leave the house to get his first treats!  We even let him try a lick of the sucker later that night when he got the hiccups, but he didn't want anything to do with it! :)

By Friday, we were ready for our first trip out of the house. Well I say ready, but my momma gut was killing me.  I was so nervous, I can't really explain that anxiety I had the first few weeks.  I guess it was the hormones, or just the immense love & responsibility for my baby boy, but everything was a big deal at first.  Packing the diaper bag probably took us an hour, and it was overflowing with stuff we probably didn't need.  But I didn't want to get far from home without anything we possibly might need! Anyways, we did make it out of the house for an October/November birthday dinner at Brent's parent's house.  Carter was born right in the middle of a busy birthday season for our families, and on the actual day of his Aunt Kara.  So we celebrated them all together.  Carter was the star of the show, though!  I think everyone there offered to wait to eat so they could hold him while everyone else ate! 

One of Carter's first smiles I caught on camera.

After that weekend, Brent went back to work.  He cuddled and rocked him awhile that morning before he left, and told me how hard it was leaving us!  He told me if he had that much trouble after one week, he couldn't imagine how it would be for me after 9 or 10!  

So blurry, but this is daddy & Carter with some snuggle time
before his first day back at work.

In all, that first week was pretty good, I guess.  Carter is a really good baby and really doesn't fuss or cry much unless he is hungry or needs a diaper change.  But, like all babies, he had to eat every 3 hours all day/night, so his momma was pretty worn out.  I also had very little time to eat, sleep or shower myself because he was eating so often and so long, then I would have to burp him really good and I rarely put the boy down, so it left very little time for me.  But I'm glad I was able to spend so much time with him.