Mommy of two! Family of Four!

This post represents Sophie Elizabeth Lewellen's official welcome into the blogosphere! We're thrilled to announce that she was born via VBAC on Wednesday, July 22nd, at 9:54pm. She was born at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital and was 6 pounds, 3 ounces and 19 inches long. She is absolutely perfect, healthy, and cute as a button.

She is developing beautifully and physically thriving. She's 7 weeks old, and at her last pediatrician appointment she weighed over 9.5 pounds. Given how well she eats, we're guessing she's at least 10 pounds by now. She's already wearing some 3 month-sized clothes!

Moo, baby. Moo. Breastfeeding is finally going extremely well after a rocky start. Sophie refused to nurse from the beginning, and we spent lots of energy, money and sanity trying to get her latched on - all to no avail. (You would not believe the bizarre contraptions they have out there to try to help with this sort of thing. It's actually quite disturbing.) Every time she was hungry I'd try to nurse her, and every time she'd get more and more agitated. It was very stressful for both of us, and eventually I just decided to pump bottles for her and bypass the agony. It was such a relief to make that decision. So now I just pump exclusively, and I love it. There are many advantages: David gets to feed Sophie and have that bonding time with her, and the burden of feeding her doesn't fall solely on my shoulders. And it's so nice to just grab a bottle when we're going out (with Ben, I always found nursing while out/in public physically awkward without my nursing cushion). Fortunately I have tons of milk, so we don't need to do any formula supplementing. My great grandmother Lillian Gleason Swartz said of breastfeeding, and giving one of her infant sons mashed potatoes to make him happy when he was hungry: "Women are either heifers or guernseys. I'm a heifer!" I suppose I'm living in the right state. Moo!!

Party in Sophie's crib, 2am! And 3 am! And 5am! The not-so-good news - and I'm not even going to categorize it as necessarily bad because the more I hear from moms, it seems like normal baby behavior - is that Sophie has a "fussy time" of day, anywhere from late afternoon to the wee hours. Some nights are better than others, to say the least. For example, her bad nights are fussy with no sleep from late afternoon to as late as 3:30am. (Yikes!) A comparably good night is uninterrupted sleep from 1:45am-7:45am. We're just learning to roll with it - or at least, we're trying. We've noticed that if we get too attached to the good nights, we're much more easily bent out of shape when they inevitably don't happen. This is not as easy or simple as it may sound, but again, we're trying. You may remember we were quite spoiled with Ben, who has always been (and continues to be, thank god) a great sleeper. Sophie's just different. David has joked that every parent thinks childhood behavior is all about nurture - until they have their second child. :)

What's wrong, baby? We've tried every ridiculous, cockamamied idea that you could possibly imagine to try to soothe her during these times. We have a swing that plays music and has adjustable speeds. Sometimes she sleeps in it, and at other times she hates it. We have a vibrating papasan chair that she sleeps in; we've put it right in her crib. (The vibration does help her sleep, but only during her non-fussy times.) We have a fan in her room that we use for continuous white noise. She has two other crib soothers (a white noise lamb and a Fisher Price lights and music type thing) hanging from her crib rails. We've tried swaddling, which she hates and makes her cry and wriggle even more. We've tried shushing her (a la Happiest Baby on the Block). We tried giving her milk based formula, which made her barf. We tried giving her soy-based formula, which made her projectile barf. I eliminated garlic, onions, and most dairy from my diet thinking my milk was causing her some tummy trauma, but it didn't seem to matter (and the extreme dietary restriction was making me cranky).

But I think we may have finally found the magic potion - literally. Yesterday we bought some Gripe Water at Walgreens, willing to give pretty much anything a try at this point, and gave her the recommended dosage. She smacked her lips and drank it right down as if it were some kind of special treat (it contains chamomile, fennel, and ginger) and went to bed at 1am, an improvement over her recent pattern of staying up until 4! The chamomile is calming, and the other ingredients are excellent for soothing any kind of digestive woes. We are so relieved to have found something that actually works!

Laughter is the best medicine (especially when you're not getting a lot of sleep)! While all of this may seem like a huge drag - and let me tell you, much of this scene is not a bag of laughs most of the time - there are the moments that make it all worthwhile. Sophie just recently started adding coos and cute vocalizations to her already dazzlingly adorable smiles, and Ben is learning more and more words ("apple", "hop" and "hug" are the newest additions to his budding vocabulary). It defies logic, but just one little smile from my sweethearts can wipe out a whole day of accumulated frustration and exhaustion. And the laughing is the best. Kids are just exploding with comedic potential. For example, Ben sees me pumping a lot, and one day he got his hands on a funnel and held it up curiously to his own chest. Where's the camera when you need it?!

But by far the most hilarious moment since Sophie's homecoming was during a night feeding. Sophie let fly with one of her usual sudden, explosive bowel movements - the force and loudness are really quite shocking - and scared one of the cats so badly she went flying out of the room so fast you could hear her claws scraping frantically on the hallway's hardwood floors like a cartoon sound effect. I laughed so hard I woke David up in the next room. I was so tired I just couldn't help it. It definitely made my whole night!!

So there's a glimpse into the world of going from one to two kids, which, as I'm sure you've heard, is not at all as simple as 1 + 1 = 2. It's crazy, exhausting, fun, joyous, frustrating, exasperating, and heartwarming all at the same time. Often within the same minute!