7 Weeks Post Oswin (never expect title creativity from me)

Well we are 7 weeks out now. I don't want to jinx anything but Oswin slept 11 hours straight last night. I know that may not last and he's still sleeping swaddled, I don't know how he'll take to un swaddled sleep, but it's a nice change. Lyra, on the other hand, woke me up to put on her halloween socks. Oswin takes a while to get to sleep in the evenings but when he goes down, he goes down hard. Setting Lyra down used to be a delicate process. If you fumbled at all, breathed too hard or patted her for one second too long or whatever, she qoke up fully and you were back to square one. With Oswin you can kinda just toss him onto the bed and he doesn't wake up. Exclusively at night though, doesn't work during the day. But I'll take what I can get. 

Here's a couple snapshots of our life right now.

Weird Oswin quirk, one of the best ways to put him to sleep....hold him like this with his head leaned back at this really uncomfortable looking angle. 

This is 2.5 days worth of diapers for a toddler and newborn. Plus like 6 or so disposables for overnight. All I do is change diapers, I swear. 

Mom life. But you know you have good friends when they show up at your door with mac and cheese and wine when you send out a pleading text for company. 

Bought a new good swing when the little secondhand one we had broke and it is amazing. I regret cheaping out when I had Lyra. He naps at least one good nap a day in here typically.

Her face = her personality in a nutshell. They have themed brother/sister shirts but I keep forgetting to get a picture with both.

In general, everyone's doing pretty ok these days. Oswin's still growing like crazy. Breastfeeding is way easier this time around. Except for some weird reason both kids do not like left boob. At different times I've thought it was due to the way I hold the kids, their necks being sore, too much or too little milk, too fast flow, nothing really makes total sense that I can figure out. Super frustrating because that leads to different sized boobs. Comical, but mildly stressful. And then I'm trying to pump enough to fix that but not cause myself supply issues or pain. Plus, one time when I was still nursing Lyra I went on the internet and learned that very rarely a one sided nursing strike means you have cancer. I am basically 99.999% sure that is not the case here. So every now and then I have to have a chat with myself and calm down the 0.001% side of me that's crazy. Stupid left boob. I'm sure that I notice much more than anyone else does but still, not cool.

I forgot to include my postpartum pictures in the last post so here goes.  

2 days before Owsin was born, 40 weeks and 4 days is my final guess of how far along this was. In any case,  I was over it. I'd gained 42 pounds at this point. 

1 day postpartum, just after we got home from the hospital

2 days 

3 days

One week out, peak mom hair here. 

2 weeks out. Post stomach flu from hell. At this point I'd lost 22 pounds and weight loss stalled out. Weight loss kicked in again around week 5 or 6 but at a much slower pace. At 7 weeks out I still have an extra 16 or so leftover from this pregnancy. And I've been too lazy to get a good picture.

I've spent a bit of the last couple weeks wondering if Oswin has a milk allergy that is manifesting itself earlier than Lyra's did. At this point I'm not convinced it is anything more than normal baby stuff and I'm just being extra diligent and watching too decide if I need to go dairy free for a while.

Occasionally, he throws up everything in his stomach. Lyra used to do this too. At this point this has happened to me enough, I'm a pro at dealing with it. We happened to be out at brunch the other morning when he did it last. (My hipster kid loves brunch by the way. Lyra knows which restaurant we go to, and loves her "bakey." That's bacon, in toddler speak.) I was holding him upright and he aimed the first part straight down my shirt. If you're a mom who has had this happen, you know exactly how the space in a nursing bra right between your boobs is basically a pocket. A pocket for catching dropped food, vomit, basically anything gross or smallish sized. I even found a pacifier in there at the end of the day once, true story. So anyway, I know better than to move him since he'd already puked straight into my bra. I just let it happen and tried to minimize the spread of the mess. Then I just threw the vomit covered baby at Travis and ran to the bathroom to mop up the vomit puddle in my bra with a cloth diaper. Thank goodness for those, they're truly multi purpose mess cleaners.  I was impressed with our smooth handling of the situation. Oswin needed a full outfit change and I had to leave the restaurant wearing Travis' jacket, but no one around even noticed the chaos as far as I could tell. I even finished my mimosa. I mean, is it even really brunch of someone doesn't end up without clothing?

Good thing Travis wears jackets. 

Postpartum/Newborn Oswin Update

I'm only on day 3, but so far I'm having an easier recovery and adjustment postpartum.

Physically speaking, I pushed a much shorter time during delivery which helps the general soreness. Plus, this time I am more prepared because I know what works for me recovery wise. I have one of those stomach binders that I think not only helps the "my insides are rapidly rearranging and it feels like there is a huge gaping empty space in there" feeling, but it helps support my back and stomach muscles. All of which were sore from pregnancy and pushing.  I didn't use that until probably 2 weeks in with Lyra. This time I had it brought to me in the hospital and have been using it when I'm on my feet since 24 hours out. I lucked out again and didn't tear, even with the pound bigger kid and the more rapid pushing. Even bleeding is surprisingly slowed down already. Travis says that's because I got that all out of the way during labor. He's been joking about the big clot I passed right when things got scary. He's like, "That's when your cervix fell out onto the floor and you went from 5 to 10 cm. Someone cleaned it up for you. " We can joke about the scary stuff in hindsight.

The main thing that hurts right now is my tailbone. Getting up or down or changing positions is the worst. Travis says its concerning to him when I make my labor noises trying to get off the couch. I think mainly I keep trying to stop taking tylenol and ibuprofen too early. But that's probably my most major physical complaint so it really isn't much to complain about.

I'm also used to the sleep deprivation so that's kind of business as usual right now. I'm sure that will get worse, but it helps right now. I didn't sleep the night I was in labor, but luckily I gave birth in the morning and had a day to let the adrenaline wear off and to settle a bit. Still didn't sleep much that night (the hospital isn't restful when everyone comes in to check you all the time)  but it was better than when I have birth at dinnertime. I'm basically back to 3rd trimester sleep, still up every few hours.

Breastfeeding is so far going better than with Lyra. I had a crazy oversupply with her and she had jaundice. I think both of those things got ahead of me. This time I think Wyn is a better eater from the get go and isn't having any jaundice issues so far. He seems to have kept up with my supply a bit better, I definitely don't have trouble getting him to wake up and nurse. I think we're starting to turn the corner into drowning in milk territory though so I may have to start with the pump soon. But with that, my biggest struggle was mental. I didn't want to have to pump and kept thinking I was making things worse and either just trying to deal with the engorgement pain or being really inconsistent with pumping. This time, if I have to pump, I'll probably just donate the majority or see if Lyra will drink it.

3.5 week update:

Ok, so I got busy and didn't complete my post. Basic update, this baby is huge. Like 6 month size clothes at 3 weeks huge. He weighs as much as Lyra did at 2 months at less than 1 month.

Still have an oversupply but much less than with Lyra. I maybe get 4 or 5 extra ounces a day if I have to pump some. And it's only ever once a day, if that. I think he eats more than she did. Plus I got a killer stomach virus at 2 weeks postpartum. Lost almost 5 pounds overnight and haven't had a stomach virus that bad since I was a kid. That kinda killed my supply, turned out to be lucky I had extra. Lyra also had the virus at 2 weeks out. That was brutal. Sick toddler while trying to recover from childbirth, puking a couple weeks postpartum, 10/10 would not reccomend. I'm so thankful I didn't end up with previa and a c section at the end.

Mentally, I've also felt better this go around. In hindsight I wonder if I had some postpartum anxiety with Lyra. I've felt a little extra hormonal this time around but it's soooo different. So far the transition to two kids has been easier than the transition from none to one. I don't know if that will continue later on. I think it's because no kids to 1 kid was a full lifestyle change. Adding a second kid is adding a lot of busy and extra work, but it's not a full routine change.

Sleep has been ok so far. However, I'm going to be waiting for him to be a terrible sleeper for, oh, probably the next 5 years. I just can't let my guard down there. Lyra still gets up on occasion during the night. I listen to a lot of podcast episodes on nighttime wake ups now. I've discovered some good scary fiction ones.

I lost 22 pounds the first 2 weeks and since then haven't really lost anything else. So still about 20 pounds up. But I don't think that's too bad for not being far out from birth yet. Everything else feels pretty much back to normal, much faster than I felt normal with Lyra. The one thing that still hurts a lot is my tailbone. I've heard that can last for months so that sucks. But this time I'm going to a chiropractor and getting massages regularly so I feel pretty good otherwise.

It has also been weird to adjust to a baby that isn't Lyra. Oswin is similar in a lot of ways but very distinctly a different person. It is weird but also really neat to see how different personalities a tiny little person can have. Oswin loves his hands up by his face which makes a lot of in utero movement make sense. He wobbles his chin a ton when he cries which is adorable and hilarious. Lyra used to do the bottom lip stuck out sad face, Oswin doesn't really.  She also used to do the funny super red faced grunt poop noises, Oswin doesn't which is sad. Oswin is also so grunty all the time. He sounds like a little pig, it's adorable.

Cut to 5 weeks out....

And a final update at 5 weeks out because life is busy with 2 kids. Oswin is smiling now, almost laughing today. He likes when you bop his lips with your fingers. He also likes Lyra which just melts me all the time.  He's starting to struggle with sleeping which is a bit rough. But overall, settling in to things better than I was led to believe, honestly.  Hopefully I'll be back with another update sooner than this one came together.

<3

He takes all his naps on the go and in someone's arms. 

:)

Travis and Lyra are blurry because he's trying to avoid the camera.