Mommy Intuition

Like I mentioned in a previous post Phoenix had issue's gaining weight the first few weeks. We had a very dense and questionable pediatrician (I recommend to all mommy-to-be's to interview the pediatrician before the baby arrives. That was our big mistake). He kept telling us that we needed to supplement with formula and we did on and off for about a week. At his two week appointment Phoenix was still weighing in at 7.5. Our pedi recommended that we supplement with formula and come back in 3 days. When we left we went to Babies R Us and picked up a baby scale so that we could track Phoenix's progress on our own. We got home and weighed him and Phoenix was weighing 7.15 which was weird because just a few hours before he was 6 ounces less. So we decided to check the scale. We weighed various items, a bag of shrimp, bottle of oil and flour. All of these things we weighed matched the true weight on their labels...Confusing?? It didn't make sense to me that after 2 ounces of formula he had gained 10 ounces! So for the next days we tracked and tracked and tracked. Saturday arrives and we go back to our pedi. He was not in that day so a nurse weighed him and he weighed back at 7.0. How in the hell in 3 days does he go from gaining 10 ounces to losing 15 I screamed at Shawn...Well not at him, it was more of a venting to him. Puzzled we smiled at the nurse and made our appointment for Monday. All weekend long I told everyone who would listen our problem and that I felt very calm about the whole thing. I wasn't worried because I knew nothing was wrong. I could feel the gallons upon gallons of milk in my breast! There was no way this baby wasn't getting anything! Finally Monday we weigh him before going to our appointment and he was at about 8.2. Good! We get to the pedi and what do you know a new nurse weighs him at 8.1..ok...one ounce we can deal with that. Then our pedi comes to weigh him and guess what? 7.5. I look at Shawn and shake my head "Are you F-ing kidding me!?" I'm thinking no ?&*!&%$ way! Our pediatrician explains to us that maybe because of the diaper it allowed it to weigh differently because you know an empty diaper weighs THREE OUNCES! ok Doc. The whole time we are trying to explain to the doctor that since coming to him we have had so many different weight checks, we explained our own experiment at home and he still had no answer for why this was happening. He finally declares that there was nothing we could. I had to formula feed. Tears, denial, more tears, anger at myself followed. But like I said in my previous post we did conquer it. Phoenix is still a slow weight gainer. He's only 13 lbs but looks to be about half my height. After hearing tons of stories that day I had to decide to listen to my heart. I knew that my baby was fine and healthy and that we may have to do a little extra (we do 2 bottles a day) but he was fine and would be fine.

Being a new mommy you are constantly bombarded with advice and judgements from everywhere and everyone. You are constantly second guessing your decisions and not trusting you instincts. Doctor says to vaccinate, but this article says don't. Sleep expert says crying it out is child abuse, this expert says it's a teaching tool. Mommy A says clothes diapers is the only way to go, and oh yeah so is co-sleeping. Mommy B buys Pampers in Bulk and has put Little Bundle of Joy in their own room from the first hour home. In the beginning I constantly felt inadequate. A bad mommy. And of course because I am so young people automatically expect you to mess up and forget to put a hat on the baby or leave them in the car. Learning to trust my own mommy instincts is something I'm doing everyday. Some days it's harder then others and others I look at this smiling, loud, happy, {almost} rolly polly baby and I think "I can do this! I really can!"

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of little details in that story, it was a long and emotional month. But three things I want you to take from it

1. Interview your choice of pediatrician before committing to that practice

2. Listen to the advice of the doctor and midwifes and Yaya's and Mimi's, but also remember you are this baby's parent. You've been given to him and him to you. And you may just know best.

and most importantly

3. And empty diaper, straight from the diaper box weighs three ounces!

Sorry this post is sooooo long. It's shopping season here in my house. Meaning Shawn has been working like crazy in his studio to get new music ready so I'm bored and after Fin's down I have a lot of free time!!!!!