The one where Charlotte is three weeks old

"I'm this big now!"




We had our three-week check-up on Tuesday afternoon. Charlotte is 7lbs 10oz now, so she's gained 8oz since birth. She's nice and pink, her lungs are clear, her heartbeat sounds great, and all seems well with her.
I'm healing well apparently. I was asked how breastfeeding was going and, of course, had to cry and explain what happened while being made to feel bad about my decision. I was offered an appointment at the Open Arms clinic to do a feeding assessment if I wanted to give it "one more shot". I said I didn't know if I wanted to do that.

"You're done trying?"

Well, I guess so. Saying it that way makes me sound selfish and like I don't care about doing what's best for my daughter, but yes. I am done trying. I'm done having to explain myself. I'm done having all these crummy feelings come back. I want to just be able to accept what's happened, deal with it, and move on. I've had two feeding assessments with the public health nurse. I've tried everything. I hate that people think that I've just given up without trying. I don't know what else anyone can tell me or show me. Sure, feeding works relatively well when someone is helping me but guess what - I don't have four hands! I can't hold her hands out of the way, position her properly, pull her chin down, and do breast compressions all at the same time. Sorry. I don't have someone here 24/7 to be my breastfeeding partner. So just leave me alone! I've done what I can and I'm still doing what I can to make sure she's still getting some of my milk through pumping. I completely understand the importance of breast milk, but why is there such a push for breastfeeding? When I breastfed her, I didn't get any of that nice bonding that we're supposed to have. She'd fall asleep and I'd spend the whole feeding feeling frustrated trying to wake her up. I can still have skin-to-skin, eye contact, and all that when I feed her my breast milk from a bottle. I just don't get it. Argh.

Anyway...

In the last week, Charlotte has started focusing on things much more. She is definitely looking at things now, especially our faces. She still loves her play mat and loves watching the light-up sun when the music plays. She's getting stronger and holds her head up for longer periods of time. She moves a ton - when we put her in the middle of the cradle at night, we wake up to find that she's wedged herself into the side somehow. When she's on her tummy, she kicks her legs so hard that I'm surprised she doesn't move forward when she does it. Super strong baby!
We're slowly easing into a routine. Nighttime is still hard and we're trying to figure it out, but the day seems pretty predictable lately. She's usually up sometime in the hour of 7am, eats, goes back to sleep until about 9:30ish, will usually eat again, spends some time awake and playing, and is usually asleep again by lunch time. She has lots of awake time in the early afternoon and usually again in the evening. She's usually up once or twice in the middle of the night to eat and will sometimes go back to sleep easily and other times will be up for hours fighting sleep. We just need to figure out a good bedtime routine and to get her to sleep in her freakin' cradle! That's still a huge struggle. Last night she just slept with me on my chest because I was too tired to bother fighting.

That's the news for this week!



















Watching the sun change colours and play music



















Staring at the puppy



















Hey, there's a baby in that mirror!



















So goofy!