A Week in the Life of Baby D

Baby D is now three weeks old.  Of his three weeks, this last one has been the craziest.  On Monday of last week, Baby D saw his new doctor and weighed in at 8lbs 8oz.  I was surprised that he had lost so much weight; he was down almost a whole pound from his birth weight of 9lbs 4oz.  But no big deal; he wasn't even two weeks old yet and my milk had taken a whole four days to come in.

Last Friday, one week ago, I took him to the doctor again for his circumcision.  When D was weighed, we discovered that not only had he not regained his birth weight, he was actually still losing weight!  The doctor canceled the circumcision, took a stool sample to rule out digestive disorders, freaked me out about congenital disorders that could cause slow weight gain, told me to supplement with formula, and asked me to come in on Monday for a re-weigh.

I hate formula.  I know that if I want my baby to grow, I should focus on increasing my milk supply instead of giving him bottles of formula.  Jeesh.  I thought every doctor knew that.  Plus, formula STINKS! So I started pumping like crazy.  And boy was I disappointed with my output.  Especially when D's demand was so high.  At 2:00 AM, when my supply of bottled milk was gone, Baby D had nursed me dry, and I was crying because my baby was crying for more milk... M got in the car and drove into town to buy formula.  And fenugreek.  Keep in mind we live at least 45 minutes away from the closest store.  And it was pouring down rain and very windy.  Just under two hours later, D was sucking down a bottle of (gag) formula.  And he was happy.

A few hours later I took him in to the doctor where he weighed in at 8lbs 13oz!  He gained 7 oz in only three days!  And the doctor thought is was all due to the formula!  And he told me to keep supplementing- a third of all his feedings-with formula!  My inner Mother Bear was very angry.  So I ignored what he said.  I did feed the baby the rest of the bottle M brought home, but no more after that.  Extra pumping, extra water, and fenugreek brought my milk supply up to a level where I started freezing my extra milk.

And today, when I brought Baby D in for his rescheduled circumcision, the doctor greeted me with, "How is that formula working for you?"  I said, "Oh, I'm not using it.  I finished up that one bottle we bought, but he is just getting my milk."  He looked at the nurse and said, "We need to get a weight on that baby."  Like I was starving him.  Or a kook that doesn't believe in scientific technology.  And guess what?  He weighed 9lbs 3oz!

So we were cleared to continue with the circumcision.  For the third time I was told the risks (including possible amputation) and they took my baby away.  It has been a long time since I've had a baby boy, so I forgot that the procedure takes 20 minutes.  I had S, E, and F with me, so I elected to not watch the procedure and stay in the examination room with my other kids.  I felt weird that my baby would be away from me for 20 minutes; he has never been away from me for five minutes.  But I didn't have to worry long.  Baby D cried so hard that the doctor refused to perform the procedure.  He said that if he did, Baby D "would be catatonic and that wouldn't be good for him."  He then proceeded to scare me again by asking if all my kids cried like this, was there diabetes in the family, are my kids normally this active, alert, and aware that Not-Mom is holding him.  What???

Part of the problem was that he was hungry.  This kid is obviously making up for lost time and eating a lot.  And eating frequently.  So he hadn't had a good meal for over an hour because of their rules about food and surgery.   As soon as I nursed him, he was okay.  So the doctor spent some time checking his eyes and scaring me with questions like, "Does he focus on your face?" Not yet. "Hmmm... I wonder why he isn't responding to the light I'm flashing in his eyes."  Was my baby BLIND?  I had to get out of there!  This doctor is nuts!

So our orders are to come in sometime next week for another weigh-in and we are going to do the circumcision when he can go longer than one hour without eating... or never!