Before we left OC on Monday, we had a nice dinner at Kat and Eddie's place, and had to say goodbye to cousin Kingston.
Kenn goofed around holding these "boys"
My mother-in-law, Thao,
came back from Orange County with us to watch Iver for the next many
months (exact length TBD), for which we are sooo thankful. She has raised four
wonderful kids of her own, is perhaps the most selfless person I know, and feels that
caring for her grandson is the most important job in the world ("Family first," she always says). It is a great sacrifice for her, to leave her husband (who is watching Kingston a couple of days per week), her other family, her friends, her Vietnamense culture, and her hometown of 20+ years to help us with our little one. Having
an extra set of hands around at all times is incredibly invaluable to us, and she is ALL ABOUT snuggling her grandson! She is sooo loving towards him, talking and playing with him pretty much all his waking hours, and loves dressing him in different outfits :). She is also a great cook, which is certainly another perk of having her with us, although we don't certainly don't expect her to take over this responsibility. We are just thankful we don't have to figure out the child care/day care situation just yet and leave our little one with a stranger. Who better than grandma??
On Tuesday, I showed her the ropes with the diapering, bottles, and we took some St. Patty's day photos in a outfit we were given that happened to fit Iver perfectly! He as in a great mood, but our squirmy guy kept knocking over the portrait blocks!
He obviously was not too distressed at the thought that mama was going back to work the next day.
I went back to work on Wednesday (after hearing advice that it
is less daunting to have a shorter first week, with the upcoming weekend
potentially to recuperate, re-establish nursing/milk supply, and get more baby-snuggling in). While
I was ready to get back into the working world after my three months at
home (the last month being the hardest for me), it was definitely difficult leaving my little cutie in the morning, but I knew he was in excellent hands! I also got encouragement from this recent article ("
Child of a doctor doesn't suffer"), which demonstrates that children of doctor-moms aren't necessarily scarred for life from having a mom who works a demanding, exhausting, and sometimes unpredictable job and who always feels incredibly guilty about it. I'm on call for OB backup/c-sections this weekend through Tuesday morning, and hope it won't be too crazy. I have decided to work one fewer clinic day every other week, for at the first three months back.
Kiss goodbye
Here's my little gangster up close
It was great to get text updates from Mom while I saw patients :). She is also an awesome charter, recording his eating times, amounts, sleep times (she brought up a hammock for him, which he loves for naps!), and dirty diapers for me so we can stay up on any kind of "schedule" it appears he starts to develop.
The hammock from OC
The first half-week (I actually only worked Wed and Friday) back was ... ok. I had a pretty good headache after day one, which felt like my brain was hurting from thinking harder than I have had to in months. I had a busy time cleaning out my inbox as well as covering that of another provider out this week (I had to reciprocate, with the other providers having covered me for months!), but I survived. What I hate the most about going back to work, actually, is the breast pumping and all the equipment/setup and clean-up time it requires. Ugh. I have blocked a half-hour in my morning and afternoon clinic blocks for pumping, and try to pump before work (or before Iver wakes), in the evening after he's asleep, and occasionally in the middle of the night. However, with all the patient care appointments, charting, and paperwork (and with the potential, while on-call, to get called out anytime), I still feel rushed and anxious. Pumping is a necessary evil, however, and one which will have to become part of my daily routine as I really want breastfeeding to be successful. Iver is a hungry baby during the day and my biggest worry is keeping up supply for him. I have started to become very protective of my frozen supply (you could say I'm "hoarding" a bit), as well as feeling like perhaps any free minute I have I should spend pumping to save more milk for my working hours (which is pretty crazy given how little free time I have), and really identified with the article,
15 Weird Ways Breastfeeding Messes with your Mind. We'll see how this all goes, although I know that formula-fed babies do just fine in life (and even go to medical school, as an article out there quipped :)). I luckily work close enough to home to be able to try to (in absence of meetings or getting called to labor and delivery) come home for lunch to nurse him. There is a chance that, on Kelvin's day off, he could bring the baby to me during my breaks, which would be awesome. Prayers on this front are appreciated.
At three months, Iver:
- probably weighs about 13 lbs, although we don't have a very recent weight on him
- is in cloth diapers during the day and Huggies at night (we are starting to use size twos for the second half of the night due to some impressive 5-7 a.m. blow-outs!
- still fits in to some 0-3 month clothes, depending on the brand, but also fills out 3-6 month outfits
- is a great eater, and will drink (gulp!) up to 5 oz of milk at one time from the bottle (and would breastfeed every 2 hours if he could!)
- goes to bed pretty easily around 8 p.m., and will sleep about 4-5 hours at an initial stretch (we got ONE six-hour stretch once, but that was it), then wake at midnight or 1, again between 3-4 am, and then around 6-7 a.m. for the day. He is currently sleeping in our room in a bedside arm's reach co-sleeper, and our plans include trying to transition him to the crib when he's going longer stretches
- fights daytime naps on horizontal surfaces but sleeps well on our chests, in the Bjorn, in his carseat, and in the hammock that we now have. He usually has a short nap early morning, about a 1.5-hour nap midday, and up to a 2-3 hour afternoon snooze!
- sucks on his hands about 80% of his waking hours. He LOVES his hands! We still use the pacifier occasionally during the day and for naps/bedtime
- still loves getting his diaper changed (especially when well-fed)
- is starting to notice toys, like the mobile in his crib (not that he spends much time there!) and Sophie the giraffe
- is a very chatty boy, especially in the mornings. He smiles, and makes lots of cooing sounds which are adorable
- seems to like tummy time, holds his head up pretty well, and has rolled from front to back several times while on his playmat
I can't believe three months has gone by already!!
Here's to many more fun months, and here's hoping for good work-family balance!
