Three Weeks Postpartum

How Ava's Doing

Ava is wonderful! She makes me so happy just by being here. She's mostly a very content baby, but as she is getting older she has become a bit more demanding. She had an appointment on her three week marker and was up 26 oz (1lb 10 oz) from her previous appointment. This is so thrilling to me as she is primarily breast fed (there is the rare occasion that daddy feeds her formula while I shower and I have used up all my pumped milk).  Despite the weight gain, she is still a tiny little thing which I absolutely love! I know I'm going to miss the newborn stage very much.

Breastfeeding is going extremely well. I'm so proud of this because I struggled with the boys and I really hoped that would not be the case with her. She basically eats about every three hours, but she does have a few cluster feeds - late in the morning and again around 8 pm. 

In the last few days I've noticed that she is nursing a lot at night. Sometimes it doesn't feel like she's actually feeding. It feels more like comfort sucking. I tried substituting a pacifier last night but she became dissatisfied with that just as soon as I started to doze off. I might have to try it sooner next time. 

Her little face broke out this week. I really hate baby acne. She had such sweet pure looking skin up until this week and though I know it will pass, its just so frustrating and looks so uncomfortable. 

How I'm Doing

I do not feel as good about my appearance as I want to, but I know its still early. 

When I was still pregnant I told Aaron I wanted him to train me once I was cleared for workouts. At that time I was mostly concerned with getting in shape so that I wouldn't be left out of all the physical stuff he does with the kids (i.e., bike rides, jogs, hikes, etc.)

At this point, I am also ready to be happy with my physical appearance. I'm not really looking forward to working out in the sense of how much "work" it will be, but I am looking forward to feeling good and looking good and I know that only comes from hard work.

My neck pain was given a name this week - upper trapezius strain. The doctor upped my Motrin dosage to 800 mg every 8 hours and told me to wait it out for a couple of weeks!

The neck pain was seriously worse than my incision pain and brought me to tears and made everything hard to do. I think I was feeling more exhausted than usual because of the neck strain as well. 

Fortunately, breastfeeding has been going as well as it has. I do feel tender from time to time, but I'm passed the initial breastfeeding stage where I was sore all the time and at every latch on. 

Lately, I've been getting myself worked up about when to start pumping to build up a stock for work. I also worry about knowing how many ounces she'll need while I'm gone and things like that. I do have some webinars about breastfeeding and working while breastfeeding on tap to listen to, so I will have to get to those soon. 

I haven't been great about taking my prenatals, but the other day I saw gummy prenatal vitamins in the store. I wanted to get them and tried convincing myself I should in order to motivate me to take them, but I decided I would make myself finish the (almost full) bottle I have before I let myself buy the gummies. I think that's a better way to motivate myself.

I don't actually know a lot about the gummy ones so I will probably read up on them first anyway. 

How the Family is Doing

I haven't really included much about how the boys are in these updates (if at all) so now I will. 

Mac has been great with Ava. He loves her. Tells everyone about her and shows her off. But he's been testing his limits with me a lot lately and I do feel its related to the new addition of a sibling because as of now he really is only challenging me. I spend the most time with Ava (compared to Aaron) so I think Mac is wanting more of me. I also think its been an adjustment to have me home all day everyday whereas I used to go to work all week. I'm sure things will be completely flipped around again when I go back to work. 

Adrian isn't displaying any effects of the new addition, but I feel badly for him. He's still a baby to me and at times when I would be much more attentive to him and maybe pick him up to cuddle him, I'm having to just comfort him with words and encourage him to be strong. Of course that is what I always do, but I feel like Adrian is being shorted in a sense as I can't always baby him the way I did with Mac. 

I do still get to have those moments that I'm talking about, but not as often. When the opportunity is there I try to fill his cup with plenty of mommy love.

Aaron is also great. I think he enjoys my maternity leave time. With each of the kids, its been his time to sort of take a break from daddy duty (though not entirely obviously) and take it easy. Once I go back he's back on full duty again and its definitely a LOT of work. 

Week 4's recap is coming soon!