Two Weeks Old

My baby is an hour away from being two weeks old! I can't believe it has been two weeks since I went into labor and that I carried our baby for nine months. She has been doing pretty well. Addie sleeps a lot and eats about every two hours during the day and about three hours at night. She's the love of my life (okay, Jon too).

Adelaide has had trouble breast feeding from the beginning. She didn't get as much colostrum as she should have and would get fussy at the breast. She lost 11% of her body weight within the first week of life. Anything over 10% is not good. She was down to about 6lbs 9oz. We had to do something! Jon and I had a lactation specialist help us out at the hospital and then went and saw one at the pediatrician's office. They, and our pediatrician, said she is tongue tied. Being tongue tied can cause problems breast feeding and may affect her speech later on in life. The solution would be to see a specialist and get the membrane cut a bit.

Definition: Ankyloglossia, commonly known as tongue tie, is a congenital oral anomaly which may decrease mobility of the tongue tip and is caused by an unusually short, thick lingual frenulum, a membrane connecting the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth.

In other words she would really want some food but just couldn't get it. Her case isn't the worst, but I want the best for my daughter. The lactation specialist gave me a plastic nipple extension but Adelaide didn't take to that. The specialist also gave us a syringe with a long thin straw like thing to have Addie suck on our pinkie and feed her with the straw next to our pinkie. That last way of feeding is more like breast feeding and would keep Addie's sucking up to par unlike the bottle which they say is the lazy way.

I started out wanting to breastfeed because it was super good for our baby and way cheaper then formula. I want the best for my baby. We have been feeding her about half formula and half breast milk from a bottle (making me pump every two hours), the other two ways were getting too tough. The pumping has taken up so much time and energy. I feel so bad for my baby and just want to get things fixed so she wont have any problems later in life. It's so hard to know she has this. I just want to cry, she's my baby, I want everything to be perfect for her.

Jon and I had made an appointment for an ear, nose, and throat doctor for tomorrow but they called us and said we had to cancel the appointment because our insurance wouldn't let us have that appointment unless Adelaide's primary care physician had referred us to them. That sucks. Hopefully we can get a referral on Thursday at her two week appointment though it isn't with Adelaide's PCP. Her PCP is out of town on vacation for the week.

Pray for the best.