Frenomoties-R-Us, are you out there?

DISCLAIMER: I share a lot, I'm not embarrassed by much, and writing about the kind of stuff in this post is therapeutic for me. I'm a writer ... when I find a subject that inspires, I'm going to use it. So this post talks a lot about nipples and breastfeeding. Skip it if that freaks you out.

So in yesterday's post I alluded to some issues I'm having with nursing. The big issue at hand right now? PAIN.

Now, when I say pain, I don't mean of the garden variety, the kind of where you cringe, mutter "son of a b*&#h" under your breath and move on. I mean the kind that stops your brain from functioning in its tracks. The kind that makes you mutter obscenities heretofore unknown to man. The kind that feels like a thousand tiny Samurai sword-wielding fire ants declaring jihad on your nipples.

See, Hunter and I have figured everything out except the latch. The thing is, I know what a good latch is and I'm pretty sure Hunter does, too. He tries so hard. I remain so calm. And yet, each time, we can't quite make the latch happen right.

How bad is it? I'm going to get graphic here, so skip this paragraph if you're queasy or the thought of my nipples in distress (or in general) gives you the heebs. So, really, how bad is it? Let me put it this way ... the sight of your newborn spitting up blood onto his onesie is rather disconcerting. On many levels.

The problem? A tongue tie. It was diagnosed in the hospital and, if I recall correctly through my morphine and hydrocodone-induced fog (not to mention lack of sleep), I was encouraged to wait to see how it affected our nursing. A tongue tie means that the frenulum, the tissue under your tongue that connect to the base of your mouth, is tighter than ... well, I won't make a crass joke here (though I'm tempted ... humor helps in these situations, no?). Anyway, we were told it could stretch on its own, it might not affect nursing at all, yadda yadda, and quite frankly I think Jerry and I were both worried about someone, even someone with credentials, yielding a pair of scissors in our two-day-old son's mouth.

I'm sure the doctor meant well, but since brain-freezing, eye-popping pain tends to drive me to internet research, I have found that a procedure called a frenotomy can lead to an almost instantly good latch. You snip the frenulum, there's a tiny bit of blood and (they say) very little pain. A minute later you put baby to breast and it's like he's been nursing from women the world over for a million lifetimes.

I'm finding this whole thing very frustrating. I swore I would do everything in my power to nurse this child, and it turns out an anatomical abnormality is stopping us in our tracks.

Anyway, it's Saturday morning and there's no frenotomy in my future until I can at least call the doctor Monday morning. What I wouldn't pay for a drive-thru frenotomy window right about now. So, for now -- or for the next couple of feedings anyway -- I'm VERY reluctantly giving Hunter bottles of breastmilk. I don't want him becoming use to those things, but I've got to give my girls a break. They desperately need it.

On another note, Wilder and Hunter, the two BEST sons in the world, slept in until 9 this morning. Meaning so did Jerry and I. It was amazing. Jerry feels like he got too much sleep. I'm not sure about that myself ... I mean, I did still make half a pot of coffee without the pot actually in the coffeemaker. But I would say if you subtract middle of the night feedings, we probably did get close to six hours or so.

And finally, I close with props to our dog, Betty. We had the pest control people out yesterday, and that dog simply did not rest or quit patrolling Hunter's parameter until the guy left. God help anyone who tries to hurt that little boy.

Anyway, I'm off to some coffee that hasn't been mopped off the floor. Love to all, k.

Hunter big; Wilder happy

So we got back a little bit ago from Hunter's first doctor appointment. It went well. At 9 lbs., 6.5 oz., he's back up above his birth weight, which is something I'm particularly proud of. For a number of reasons, I wasn't able to breastfeed Wilder, though I did pump for six months. Anyway, so far, despite some big ups and downs, I've been Hunter's near-sole source of food, and I think I can almost safely say we're going to make it the long haul. We're still facing some challenges, but we've turned a big corner in the last couple days and the fact that he's gaining weight means that we're doing well. Yay us!!

Another surprise: He's actually two inches longer than his measured birth height. Twenty-two inches! I imagine it's really difficult to accurately measure a squalling newborn. Anyway, that makes him above the 97th percentile in height. I imagine he and Wilder will be similarly sized ... no big shock given their Papa's height.

Speaking of Wilder, I wish I'd gotten some photos or videos last night. Because it was Deb and Allie's last night here, we let him stay up well past his usual 8 p.m. bedtime. I have to say, I don't think I have EVER seen my firstborn so joyful. We were all hanging out, listening to music and enjoying our last night in each other's company. Wilder started dancing on his own and pretty soon had us all up cutting a rug with shouts of "dance with me!" and "shake it!" Hanging out so much with Allie this week really improved his vocabulary!

He's going to be heartbroken I think when he realizes Allie and Deb are, indeed, not coming back anytime soon. I was so worried about bringing baby home and how it would rock Wilder's world, and I think he had more fun this week than he's ever had in his whole life. He's an extremely social boy and just loves hanging out with new people. Luckily, his grandma Teri will be here Sunday.

Here's one last photo of Deb, Allie and Hunter:


xo, k.

PS. I forgot to mention, we finally got Hunter sleeping well last night! Jerry probably got six or seven hours of sleep, and I got plenty to render myself a non-zombie for the day. Woooohooo Hunter!!

The Post-Hunter Days (daze?)

Not much time to post -- just wanted to get a few more photos from the past few days on here. Hunter is a wonderful baby: calm, cries very little, cuddly, etc. Our only complaint, if you can call it that, is that his concept of day vs. night is flipped upside down right now. We're working on getting that straightened out, but you know babies ... seems he could care less about how zombie-like his parents are.

Anyway, enough inane babble. On to some photos:

Hunter cuddles with his Aunt Deb


Jerry took this photo and I love the lightness of it. It captures perfectly what he's brought to our lives.


Jerry and the kids hanging on the couch. After letting him help with Hunter's first bath, Wilder has really taken to his little brother. He loves kissing the baby and trying to ram a bink down his throat at every opportunity.


Another snoozing infant pic ...


The new parents get a rare opportunity to put their feet up, thanks to my sister-in-law Debra and niece Allie. They go home tomorrow and I'm already missing them, both because they're wonderful company and their help has been immeasurable and they love our sons so dearly. We love you guys!!


Speaking of my niece Allie, we don't often have 8-year-old girls in our house. You can see what happens when a compliant Jerry and the creative talents of Allie collide. Unfortunately, I took this pic BEFORE the rhinestone clip-on earrings were added as a final and spectacular touch.


Finally, thanks to everyone for their well wishes and love and support. It means so very much.

xo, k.

Do the boys resemble?

Hi all. A very quick post to say hi and put up a few more pictures. Kris here, by the way.

Jerry went and found this photo of Wilder and I taken when he was born ... from almost the exact same angle as the one taken with Hunter a few days ago. Weigh in on the poll at right with whether you see a resemblance between the two. We're not sure yet. They're both beautiful, regardless.



This other picture has a little gore, I guess, but it was taken in the OR and I love it. The way it's off-center and seems unplanned and you can see the bewilderment/fury on Hunter's face. "Wait, I WAS COMFORTABLE 10 seconds ago!!!"


And one last quick family pic right before we headed to the hospital to become a family of four instead of three.


I'm doing well. Sleep deprivation not too bad yet. Having family here to help ... well, I can't even begin to describe how much of a difference it makes. Gotta run. Love to all and thanks for all your wonderful well wishes!
xo, k.

Hunter Nathaniel Scott

Hi all, Jer here
Kris is having a little breakfast (if you want to call it that.) It looks like four cubes of jello and some watery yellow soup. oh, and frozen artificial grape 'juice'. I guess that's what city folks call dessert.

anyway, on to the reason your here...

Hunter less than 10 minutes old all cleaned up and madder than hell.



Hunter with goo in his eyes, all roughed up and now with a bonus! An ice cold piece of metal adhered to his wee lil chest.



Myself, Kris, Dr. Norwood and wee lil' Hunter. Hunter's the one in the colorful cap.
;)



The indomitable K and Popeye.
heh.



love to all,
Jer out.

One more, for posterity's sake ...

There he is: Hunter, in what my doctor thinks will be all his 10-lb. glory. (For the record — and I'm sure this is delusional — I don't believe he'll be more than 9 lbs.) Anyway, I've not taken as many pictures of myself pregnant with Hunter as I did Wilder. I wanted to get a few on here at the end so he can see them someday (and so I can use them in my "Do you know the suffering I endured to bring you into this world?" monologues when he does something like shave the dog in the kitchen or set something on fire.)

And, per our poll results: Should pigs fly in a frigid evil underworld and we have a third child, we will — per our ironically minded blog readers — be naming him or her "Bob." One more good reason to call it a day in the procreation department.

Happy Thursday, k.

Randomness ...

1. New c-section date is March 21. This means Hunter will be an Aries, on the cusp (My b-day is 3/23). So, like me, he'll be a fire sign with water-sign tendencies. I'm not sure what this means, except I think I'm more glad than ever he's not a girl.

2. Wilder was diagnosed with double conjunctivitis on Saturday. Eye drops, three times a day, for seven days. It's like wrestling a willful monkey on PCP covered in fire ants. Good times, good times ...

2. Want to improve your vocabulary AND help end hunger? Check this out.

3. Still huge and evermore cranky.

Signing off ... k.

SNOW!

Jerry and I tend to get a little silly when it snows. Especially when it's unexpected; it makes us giddy and we end up doing things like running outside in our bare feet (in Jerry's case) and taking pictures of each other looking goofy in the snow. If there was enough accumulation to make snow people, I guarantee we'd be doing that and posing for photos that would solidify our placement amongst the Snow Geeks.

Anyway, hard to believe since it's March 3rd, but it's snowing here in Dallas. Pretty darn hard. We're not expected to get much over an inch, but north of here they might get up to four inches. Yay! We love it! Here's some pictures taken just a bit ago ...

UPDATE: Hunter's arrival delayed!

Well, it looks like we're not going to have this boy on Friday after all. Long story short, I had a final ultrasound this past week and it turns out the placenta has moved and I no longer have previa of any degree. My doctor has never had this happen with a complete previa patient (and in fact the ultrasound was at my insistence just because I had an intuition). We went in to talk to him today about our options and, all things considered, he felt it was best that we give Hunter as much time as possible to make sure his lungs are fully developed.

Not having the previa any longer is of course a HUGE relief, and being given the chance to maybe (BIG maybe) not have to have a c-section is great. That said, we were quite excited about meeting our little boy this week, and of course this puts a wrench in the plans of lots of people who'd made plans to help us out, so there is a bit of letdown and guilt there. But, really, if it means that Hunter doesn't have to spend a minute of time in the NICU upon his arrival, it's all worth it.

So where do we go from here? Well, we're probably going to reschedule the c-section for sometime around 3/19-3/24. And then we'll hope and pray that I go into labor on my own sometime in the interim and be able to give birth w/o surgery. The sonogram revealed that he's already around 7 lbs. and the sono tech thinks he has LOTS of hair.

I will update here on the blog as we make further plans. Love to all!