Four Months Old!

Well. Did the you-know-what ever hit the fan at two months old. Here is  a very long story made short.

Poor Greta was tongue tied but it went undiagnosed and untreated until she was about 2 months old when she stopped gaining weight. She could have stopped gaining before that, but that was when we had a doctor appointment and saw the numbers. My heart just sank when she was placed on the scale and I realized she had gained only 6 or so ounces since her last visit. Sad face. We have been through a lot over here and it's still not resolved. We had her posterior tongue tie and her upper lip tie revised by laser on June 24th and she is still learning how to suck properly. She was an older baby for the procedure and has been pretty slow to learn how to use her new, longer, tongue. Damn that muscle memory. She is seeing a chiropractor which is suppose to help loosen up all the muscles that she was using to compensate for her little tongue and we are on the waiting list to be seen at the feeding and swallowing clinic at the hospital here. I feel like I'm in Canada, being on some medical wait list! And people say health care is so much better in the US. I think it's pretty much the same just with different challenges.

With her poor sucking abilities I'm still pumping all the live long day and she takes a bottle. I'd really like to nurse her because Jude and I enjoyed it for so long and I really want that same relationship with Greta. I don't know if it's realistic anymore though. I've been pumping for almost 2 months as at the beginning of June Greta started refusing to nurse because it was too physically difficult for her. Ohhhhh my poor baby! And, according to the Lactation Consultant that is about when my milk supply started to level out and it was even harder for Greta to get milk because it did not flow as freely. I'm pretty torn up about it all and mostly in the anger phase of grieving- I'm so effing mad at the hospital staff. No one who examined her there caught her posterior tongue tie. Not the pediatrician who examined and discharged her, the lactation consultant we saw there, the nurses... and I was none the wiser. If you are about to have a baby demand that your sweet little one be examined for lip ties, anterior and posterior tongue ties, if you want to nurse. I feel like our nursing relationship was just taken away from us. If babies have a revision when they are just days old they typically bounce right back and nurse like champs. I want two babies people, I can't just go having a third because I want to nurse. So I'm pumping. Oh am I pumping. I'll give it another month of appointments, therapy and prayer, and pumping but then I'll probably start supplementing and pumping less as I'm going slightly insane. I really hope she can learn to nurse properly but right now she typically gets frustrated and upset when she tries :/. We keep trying though- gently, patiently, and slowly as I don't want her to have an aversion to nursing. Like I said, I just don't know if nursing is even realistic for us anymore... I am so mad and oh so sad. 

That there is a long story, thanks for staying with me. 

Greta turned 4 months old yesterday though (well a couple days ago, I haven't had a chance to finish this post...). And she is just the sweetest little thing. She loves her mother with a fierce devotion, poor Dan, poor anyone else. She smiles all the time and loves watching Jude. She typically wakes up really happy- cooing and singing her songs. She still sleeps in her bassinet in our bedroom as I just can't bare her to be too far away from me yet and she is still waking up at least once during the night. I honestly don't know when I'll put her in the crib. She is gaining weight now that I pump and give her a bottle, so she has the cutest little rolly polly's that are far too kissable. Between pumping, mugging on my baby, all her appointments, and still being in complete adoration of my Jude boy, things like my baseboards have gone completely neglected and also my hair. Somehow though, I've still managed to get meals on the table. I'm a ravenous pumping mother, I guess. I want to eat all the time, no I need to eat all the time! Greta is almost rolling over, but not quite yet. She doesn't have any teeth but is constantly chomping on her little hands so something must be going on in her gingiva. We shall see! Jude got his first tooth at 4 months almost to the day. Gosh we just love this little girl. Babies are a lot of work, things never turn out how you want them too, but behind the work and perhaps the frustrations, lies love, and so very much of it.

Four months of Greta and we can't wait for more.