Adjusting to Life with a Newborn

In general Daniel and I are pretty lucky... for the most part Kaylee is a pretty easy baby to take care of. She doesn't cry if your not holding her 24/7, she doesn't freak out the second she has a dirty diaper and she has been doing better than I'm sure a lot of babies do at this age with sleeping. She seems to be getting in a routine for the past few days of sleeping for 5 hours the first time we put her in bed at night which is great. Over the past few days though she has become increasingly fussy and just seems to be very uncomfortable. She used to take naps in her crib during the day but now the only way to get her to fall asleep is in her swing. When she first started sleeping in her pack and play you could just lay her down and she'd go right to sleep... now we have to set it to vibrate and she lays there and grunts A LOT.

Today has been one of those days where it's one thing after another. She had milk come out her nose this morning while she was sleeping only for it to come out her nose and mouth just an hour or two later and get all over her clothes, in her pack and play and in her hair. This afternoon after she ate I was trying to burp her and of course, milk came out her nose and got all over me and her... and 30 minutes later while she was laying on her stomach on her playmat she had milk come out her nose again except this time it was even more and she lifted her head up and then fell back down in it and got it all over her face and got choked.

I called the pediatrician to tell her about the problem getting worse and got an appointment scheduled for tomorrow. I really hope there is something they can do for her. I'm always scared she is going to spit up at night and I won't hear her and she will end up getting choked on the milk. Plus she just seems to be so uncomfortable that she is crying a lot more here lately and it's a constant battle trying to figure out how to make her comfortable.

I knew taking care of a baby was going to be hard but there were certain things I didn't think about... Obviously I knew lack of sleep was going to be an issue but didn't think about how it would affect other things. As much as Kaylee has been eating here lately (she is up to 4oz every feeding), I'm constantly stressing over whether or not I'm going to be able to keep up with how much milk she needs. I have increased the number of times I pump per day to every 2 hours. What I didn't realize before having Kaylee is that so many things affect your milk supply like stress, fatigue, not eating enough, etc... and with trying to produce as much milk as possible, I stress about stressing because I don't want a decrease in my milk supply.

Another thing I didn't expect was my back to hurt this bad and to actually get worse everyday. I'm thinking at some point with all of the epidurals I got, the anesthesiologist did something that screwed up my back. It really didn't hurt when I came home from the hospital, it just felt a little sore... but as days have gone by it has started hurting more and more to the point where now it even hurts to hold Kaylee... and it's not just one point in my spine... the pain runs from between my shoulder blades all the way down my back, with the worst pain in my lower back where one of the needles went it. I have several Vicodin pills leftover from when I was discharged from the hospital and even those don't make the pain go away.

I'm not sure there is anything that can be done to fix my back but I'm hoping that, with time, everything else will get better. Until then I'm just trying to make it through each day and be thankful for the time I get to spend with Kaylee while she is still so little. I'm sure the next thing I know she will be grown up and moving out so as hard as things are right now, I wouldn't change a thing!