The Fourth Trimester

I wrote this a few weeks ago. I’ve been at work a full month now. Since I wrote this post, Jack’s been sick twice, I’ve had the stomach flu, passed it along to my husband, and somehow we still managed to work and take care of Lola. This doesn’t account for the third leap (according to The Wonder Weeks app) that indicates that Jack will be going through for another four or five days, which may give insight as to why he decided to stop sleeping through the night this past weekend. I just look back and shake my head at my innocent self, at least I had an inkling of doubt that his glorious sleep patterns would stay strong. HAHA. Thankfully, he is still a delight at daycare, which makes me sad that we get him during his fussy time and they get his smiles and laughs. I’m a work in progress, what can I say?! Without further ado…a fourth trimester update!

It’s the Friday of my first full week back at work. I’m reflecting on the past two months and the next chapter we are starting. I went back to work last Thursday and am so thankful that Cody took a few days to spend with Jack before we sent him to daycare. It made it a little easier on my heart knowing he was home with him while I tried (and failed) to stay strong at work, especially that first day. My boys made me breakfast and packed my lunch that Thursday morning and I made it to my first pumping break before crying. I’ll blame that on my two girlfriends who sent me flowers and put me into an even further emotional tailspin.

My motto these days is just to take things one day at a time. If it’s a bad day, there’s another one around the corner. We can start over then. Friday was easier than Thursday, and Monday was easier than Friday. Don’t get me wrong, it’s so very hard on my heart to leave Jack, and I cry daily about it, but in our current season of life, I have to work and contribute to our family (what up insurance and daycare).  My company is very flexible and understanding of new moms, which I greatly appreciate. I do wish I had taken three months of maternity leave instead of two, and I wish I could tell my newly pregnant self to do the research and figure out how to make it happen.

Jack is 10 weeks old this week and I swear he looks months older since he started at daycare. I’m sad I don’t get to see his personality change moment by moment, but I know he is getting loved on by his teachers. They constantly tell me what a snuggler he is and that reassures me he is in good hands. I live for the photos they send throughout the day to know he’s doing OK.

That first Friday after I went back to work, Jack decided he was ready to attempt sleeping through the night. I use that term ‘sleeping through the night’ loosely. I fear new moms hear that and think that it’s a full night of sleep (I say this because this is what I thought when I heard other mom’s day this). False. He goes down about 8pm after about 30 minutes of our ‘bedtime routine’ and I will dream feed him sometime between midnight-3am (he’s fussing, not awake, but willing to eat), and then he’s up around 4/5am and I can get him back down for another hour or so until we get him up around 6/6:30am.

I know his sleeping habits may change, but I’d like to think he’s in my corner and knows mama needs at least a few solid hours of sleep to be a functioning human at work, well that, and all the coffee.

I thank Taking Cara Babies for getting us where we are now with Jack’s sleep. I stumbled upon the online class when Jack was 7 weeks old, I had two weeks left of maternity leave, but the class and Cara insisted that it wasn’t too late to start and the class was for 4 week-12 week olds. I started implementing her tools that first day and we haven’t looked back. I plan to do a full post on Jack’s sleep. I cannot recommend her class enough and while it isn’t for every family or baby, it has worked for us. Jack takes good naps and has started sleeping from 6-8 hours at night, and he sleeps in his crib.

We ended up moving him to his crib around 8 weeks. His grunts and noises in the middle of the night would keep me awake and I would read them as he was fussy and hungry (which wasn’t necessarily the case). Now he sleeps soundly in his room and I sleep a little better (still pretty light, because baby in another room/monitor life). His first night I swear I slept with one eye open, cried a few times, and ended up bringing him back into our room in the middle of the night. But day by day, we kept at it.

Jack had his first round of shots at his two month appointment. I’m not sure who cried more, me or him. I hadn’t heard his cry of pain, ever, and it simply just hurts my heart thinking about it. I nursed him afterwards and he calmed down.  He is around 12 pounds and 22 1/2 inches long. Jack’s officially in 0-3 month clothing and I can’t believe how much he has grown in just a short amount of time. I saw a 6 week old today and am already forgetting that Jack was just that size just a few weeks ago.

His personality has started to shine through. We love waking him up in the morning, he is such a happy baby. He freely offers us smiles and his full body stretches when we unwrap him from the swaddle is simply the best thing to watch. He still has the biggest eyes and I can’t tell yet if they will stay blue or change to brown. His blonde hair has a hint of auburn, so I’ll be anxious to see if he will take after his dad or mom in the hair department.

As for me, I’m doing pretty well. The past two weeks have been really hard. The day before I went back to work, I was a mess. I held Jack the entire day and just thought of all the ways I could become a SAHM. I know that’s not in the cards for my family, but I just couldn’t see beyond spending all my time with him. It did help that Cody stayed home with him those first few days. I was able to catch up with my co-workers (talking to other adult humans, yay!), I ran a few errands over lunch without the ticking time bomb of a crying baby or rushing home for the next feed. I realized that I hadn’t had that much “time” to myself since before Jack was born. However; it made coming home to him that much more special.

Another hurdle I have struggled with is my c-section recovery. My incision took almost 7 weeks to heal, so I didn’t feel normal, and still have tweaks here and there, until right up when I was going back to work. I think this is why I struggled with not taking additional time off from work due to having an emergency c-section. I received four weeks of maternity leave and took an additional four weeks of PTO. There was no additional time offered for a c-section. Just when I was feeling somewhat back to my normal self and finding my groove with Jack, it was time to go back to work.

Honestly, I am 100% ok with the fact that I had a c-section, but I feel robbed of my first few weeks home with Jack due to the recovery. I just wasn’t mentally prepared for what that looked like (I had prepped for a full-term, natural birth…with an epidural). The first two weeks where you cannot lift more than the weight of your child, you can’t drive, you still feel like your being ripped in two every time you sit down or try to get up, on top of all the other fun postpartum things that are happening, and throw in a few snowstorms, ice storms, and temps staying well under 32 degrees, makes for a miserable recovery time. Oh, and being 100% sleep deprived with sore boobs as you and your little one attempt to figure out the nursing life. It was a lot and I cried a lot, to be honest. I was happy to have my baby but felt trapped in our house. By week four of bad weather and limited access to the outside world, I was more than happy to have my mom around for a few days to help me leave the house with Jack to get use to getting him in the car and out with him in public. I should note of all of our friends and family that stopped by to visit, brought us food, or helped me though first few weeks. It truly takes a village.

Jack is exclusively breastfeed and now that I’m back at work I’m pumping during the day and nursing in the mornings and at night. After a full week of this routine, I can’t tell you how much I wish Jack’s daycare was on-site. I never thought I’d say this, but I love breastfeeding. I love holding him, feeding him, the entire experience (maybe not the spit up all over my clothes and in my hair…). If breastfeeding hadn’t worked for us, I would be giving him formula, as long as Jack is fed and growing, I’m OK with it. We supplemented with formula in addition to breastfeeding the first two weeks because of his weight loss when we left the hospital but thankfully my milk came in, Jack has a good latch, and other than a few issues that first week, we’ve figured out our rhythm.

With that said, I do understand why working moms may give up breastfeeding when returning to work. Pumping is a full time job. Three times a day I excuse myself to our office next door and pump. People have to work around my pumping schedule to get meetings on the calendar, or if I’m traveling around town for my job, I’ve had to pump in my car. It’s a lot of hard work, inconvenient, but worth it. Knowing that I’m feeding my son, he’s growing and getting the chubbiest cheeks and thigh rolls because of me is a really powerful mama moment and I will fight to keep it up. I don’t have a goal for how long we will breastfeed, as I said earlier, I take things a day at a time around here.

I can’t forget to document Lola’s journey to sisterhood the past few months. We introduced her to Jack when he was a week old. She had been staying at my in-law’s and the moment she came home she hasn’t left our side. Cody brought her inside and she immediately ran to the chair we were sitting in, she realized I was holding Jack and couldn’t sit on my lap so she first laid next to the chair and then jumped on the ottoman and sat on top of my legs. She kept giving me looks during those first few days that I felt so bad. She just wanted her mom and I was busy tending to Jack, she has since warmed up to him. She gets up with me at every feeding and despite training her to lay on the rug in his room, she lays next to me in the rocker when I nurse Jack every time. She is on high alert when he cries and always wants to be close to him or to me. When he sleeps, she thoroughly enjoys her alone time with me or Cody.

This has been the most exhausting and hardest time of my life, but simply put, the most rewarding. I’m in constant denial that my little seven pound nugget continues to grow, but I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Here’s a little month to month photo update of Jack Finley. I try to take photos of him every two weeks, which happen to offset his monthly photos. I just love seeing how much he changes in just a matter of days. At three months, he still has blue eyes, looks like he might be a red head (still on the fence about this one), he weights 13.5 pounds and is just over 23.5″ long.