7

Seven.

That's how many ounces D gained between Thursday's bilirubin check and yesterday's week 1 weigh in. Only 6 oz more to go until she's back up to her birth weight.

Luca commented that if I'd gained 1/2 a lb in a week, I'd freak out. I pointed out that in fact this would be reasonable since 1/2 a lb for D is the equivalent of 7% of her body weight, which on me would be more like 10 lbs. Which would be COMPLETELY REASONABLE to freak out over.

I am really hungry a lot of the time, and I think I need to institute an overnight snack so that I don't feel so drained when I get up. Luca has nicknamed D our little vampire.

To get her to sleep a little longer, last night I tried extending the time between her 2nd to last and last feed by 40 minutes (from 90 min to 2 hrs 10 min) before we went to bed so that she'd be a little more hungry and would fill up more. Instead of immediately attaching her to my breast the minute she started fussing at 8:45, I played with her and rocked her until it was almost 9:30. And well, it seemed to work. But then when she latched she was completely voracious, and I felt really guilty for making her wait at all. I am gathering that this guilt thing is something I'm going to have to get used to....

In other news, I seem to have peed and sweat (especially at night) off 20 lbs in the past week also. And I've found that I kind of like the way my post-partum belly looks, now that it is mostly deflated. Even if it is a little saggy and wrinkly, and my belly button is completely deformed. It feels like a well earned battle scar. Add this to the list of things that I thought I thought I would mind, but don't at all.

We had night #2 of sleep x wake-up to feed x3 last night. With D in the co-sleeper doing 2-3 hours of sleep per stretch. I fully expect her to regress and cry inconsolably for at least part of the night in the near future (probably the night before Luca goes back to work... haha) but for now I am so ecstatically happy that she was able to do this.

I think I prefer her in the co-sleeper to the bed at this point, if for no other reason than that it enables me to (selfishly) sleep with the blankets pulled up to my ears wrapped up like a burrito. With her in the bed, we must dispense with the blankets so we don't accidentally smother her.

We've also been reconsidering childcare options. I think daycare is still our first choice, but realistically we probably won't get off the wait lists at two of the ones we're considering until September, or maybe even January of next year. The third, which we also really liked, told us in September of last year that May was a possibility, but who really even knows whether that is realistic or if they were just saying that to get us on the hook.

In any case, we need to figure it out, and soon, since arrangements tend to take time to get put into place. If it's going to be end of summer or perhaps even next winter, we're going to have to hire a babysitter. Then the question will become whether it would be better to hire an au pair or to pay a local person by the hour. Since we have an extra room in the house, and my schedule is pretty flexible, I'm almost leaning towards au pair, in part because it would cost less (~20K compared to ~35K for comparable hours from a local babysitter), and in part because of the flexibility. Plus, we may end up needing to hire an au pair eventually anyway to orchestrate AM drop offs and PM pick ups when I go back to med school in 14 months. We'll have to see.

I also have to admit that after spending some time at the pediatrician's office, I am kind of squiked out by all the germs there, and fear that I would have similar feelings about daycare. You can practically see the germs leaping off the fomites into Miss. D's nose while you're sitting in the waiting room. Not that my house is immaculate by any stretch, but at least those are MY germs.

It's really lovely out today. Maybe I'll even go for a walk OUTSIDE THE HOUSE. Next lunch for D, and then lunch for me.