Jordy Eats!

So we caved and fed Jordan his first solid food this weekend. On Friday night I brought home a box of rice rusks for the babe to snack on and we couldn't resist letting him taste them that night. The next day Chris announced that, "it only took one rice cracker to make his poo stinky!" And today Jordan stared at me so intently as I ate my bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats that I felt bad putting it off any longer; we mixed up some rice cereal and went for the Big Eat. Don't forget to turn off the music player at the bottom of the page before you check out the video below of Jordan tasting cereal for the very first time:

In praise of Boobies

Sam is so much bigger every day, so much more alert. It’s mind-boggling that my body knows how to churn out this milk that he is growing on…. I’ve had this secret fear of all mothers that my milk is not good enough, that it is nothing more than sock water, water that socks have been soaking in, but Sam seems to be thriving even though he’s a pretty skinny guy. I’m going to have an awards banquet for my body when all of this is over.

Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions

With Jordan getting so close to starting solid foods I have been thinking about how our breastfeeding relationship is about to change. While I pine for the day I can wear a bra that actually supports me, and a shirt that doesn’t have a nursing panel, I don’t intend to force the babe into weaning next week. Still, I know that once we have a food regime we will be nursing less. It makes me consider how far we, dynamic breastfeeding duo that we are, have come since his birth.

Chris, in his chats with Jordy, will often say something to the effect of, “Look at you! You’re a big strong boy! And do you know why—because Mommy’s milk is so good!” At such times I take a look at my boy and am amazed that he is sustained solely on my milk!

At the time I didn’t blog about it but, despite all the reading I had done to prepare, it was no easy feat getting Jordan to figure out the latch. Standard Caesarean recovery time in hospital is four days, but the delivering doctor looked me over on day three and told me I looked well enough to be released if I wished; and all things considered, I felt fantastic! But I stayed because I wanted to maximize my time with the lactation staff. Well, the next day even though I was okay we had trouble persuading the attending pediatrician to release us; Jordan had lost 9% of his birth weight. He let us go on the condition that the public health nurse visit within 24 hours and that our doctor see us by week’s end. At that point we were hit or miss: sometimes nursing great, other times unsuccessful though my milk had come in.

Well, the day Rena (the public health nurse,) came, she watched us, was happy with the latch and tried to reassure us that a few bumps in the road were normal. But the session she observed would be the last time Jordan nursed for several days! By the time we got to see Dr. Davey the next day we’d grown concerned and had started cup-feeding pumped milk and formula to our little guy. Though the good doctor also tried to soothe us our distress was amped up yet again, because after that visit we started to see uric acid crystals in Jordy’s diapers. We increased the feedings, and switched to a bottle. Big Thanks to Rena for calling that day and advising me that nipple confusion is a smaller concern than dehydration. We were able to re-hydrate Jordan and Rena wrote a referral to a lactation clinic at Douglas College.

We continued to grind away but the formula was calling to me from the pantry. All my attempts at mental preparation for these “common” difficulties were for naught: I felt powerless and was close to quitting. Screw Mother Nature, she’d dropped the ball! How did babies survive if feeding was this hard? All I wanted in the whole world was to feed my son, and I was beginning to not care how. Chris kept me going, reminding me of my goals, not making me feel guilty if I opted to give Jordy the bottle, and generally cheering me on. I know I would have given up had it not been for my husband. It’s pretty cool that boobs can strengthen a family by teaching them about getting through the rough patches.

Suddenly at two weeks, I do not know what happened, but something clicked, and Jordan and I have been unstoppable ever since! Forgive me as I get sickly sweet here, though as someone who has made boob a verb (Give me the Boy, it’s time to boob ‘im!) I reckon I'm entitled to this rare lapse. Not long ago I looked into Jordan's eyes as he was feeding and asked him if he remembered the time when it wasn’t so easy. I know that he can’t understand the words, but he understood something because his eyes crinkled up, and his lips smiled around his latch and he touched my face. That kinda makes those horrible bras worth it.

Creeping up on 6 months

We've got just a few more days before Jordy is officially six months old! We're going to celebrate the big day by visiting Dr. Davey for immunizations and then giving The Little Dumer his first solid food. There is a box of rice cereal barely able to contain itself in the pantry! When we were out on Sunday for dinner we decided to let Jordan try sitting in a high chair for the first time, and other than needing a little padding to support his back he did very well; he played with his toys while Mom and Dad enjoyed dinner without having to juggle baby and cutlery. It went so well that the next day I put together his high chair so he could get used to it before Tuesday Showtime. We also hauled the "Tot-Loc" chair out of storage and now leave it in the car for meal-times out. In fact, we used it the very next day (that makes a high-chair hat-trick for the kiddo!) when the three of us had lunch at Nando's after applying for Jordy's passport.

Our sippy-cup-cutie!

Yes, I did say we went to the passport office for Jordy! EA is "forcing" their employees to take an extra week off in December and Chris had the brainwave to take Jordan for a visit with Gramma, Grampa, Uncle Tom and all of his other Oregon fans. We looked it up and the turn-around time on the passport should allow us to make a roadtrip into Eugene for a few days before Christmas. Get ready Oregonians!

Nina, Owen, Santa, Deb & Jordy

Yesterday we ventured out to the mall with my friend Nina and her son Owen (you may remember them from the post on August 26th, "Play Date!") The new Moms just had to get the boys' first photos with The Big Guy! And when the photo-op moment arrived we were much more enthusiastic than our sons. Jordan didn't really give me much of a smile even though I was dancing around and crowing at him like an idiot, but at least he wasn't flat out upset about it; Owen cried. I tried to reassure Nina, in another year or two he will be begging to see Santa in July.

Parent Panel (L-R) Deb, Chelsea, Vivian, Chris M., (sorry, I forgot Emilie's mom's name!) Dominic & Emilie

And last but not least, today Jordy and I headed down to the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver to participate in a conference presentation by the BC Early Hearing Program. Tia Aida was kind enough to join us and look after Jordan while I sat on the panel of parents of babies with hearing loss, speaking to an audience of Speech Language Pathologists from throughout BC. It was an excellent opportunity to tell our story and to put faces to the names of people I've been e-mailing or to the voices of folks I have spoken with on the phone. Most of all it was nice to connect with other parents of very young children and know that they understood our struggles. I always knew we have much to be thankful for, but it was driven home to me today, because some of these kids have complicated medical and developmental issues in addition to their hearing loss; they and their families have been through the mill. It was great to hear other perspectives: one amazing woman is a single mother whose daughter (just over two years old) has no auditory nerve or inner ear bone structure; I have no idea how she does all that she has to do on a day to day basis! Another mother and her husband have a son just over one who has just received a cochlear implant, they only moved here from China two years ago and English is a second language for them. And some families live in remote locales which makes for long travels and creative appointment juggling. For the most part, even though things aren't perfect the panel members have found ways to maintain positivity and celebrate their kids' accomplishments. There were a lot of great stories, moments that made everyone laugh and moments that made me feel so sad and yet so grateful of my own good fortune and support systems. I am pleased to have been invited to participate and I hope that what I had to say was of some value.