Monday, Aug. 18: Gaining weight

Luke Highlights: belly button stub fell off, spent two hours awake looking around and being cute, got a bath from Mom, and gained two ounces. Mom’s highlight: got to drive again after two weeks being chauffeured around, pumped an unbelievable amount of milk, gave a bath to Luke, and thought of Luke’s D-day (discharge day). Today was a very nice day. Over the night, Luke lost his belly button stub. Luke is nibbling more on the breast and was wide-awake for two hours. He wanted to be cuddled and looked all over the place. He has big blue eyes, similar to Carlita when she was born. This morning Carlita came along and was so sweet with Luke. She said “Ooooo he’s my sweetheart”. She kept kissing him and wanting to hold him. She’s doing so great with Luke and the NICU visits. After the morning, Karl took Carlita to a playground and to the pool and I drove to the hospital all by myself. It was weird to drive after two weeks off. I spent the afternoon holding Luke and trying to help him breastfeed. We got a nice surprise visit from Jen and Sean Eddy and Sean’s sister Alice (Jen was one of my RAs at JMU). They visited Luke, and we all went out for dinner and ice cream. After they left, I returned to the hospital and got a chance to give Luke a bath. Before getting the bath, he gave me a great present in his diaper. Good boy! He was so cute, and didn’t fuss that much during the bath. He got weighed and has gained two ounces, which is good. The nurse explained that babies should gain one or two ounces a day hopefully. Hopefully Luke does this.


Today was two weeks since Luke was born. He is considered 36 weeks old gestational, rather than two weeks old. Karl and I have learned so much throughout this experience. I really am dealing with feelings of not being able to do anything for Luke, other than pump for milk. The nurses are great and give me things to do for him, but still we spend hours just sitting there watching Luke sleep. We’re not at home and in our own zone. We have two homes and it’s hard to balance between the two. I just want to have him home so I can take naps with him, cuddle, and not pump as much. Hopefully this will happen soon.