Exams, breastfeeding, and hairdos

It's been a busy, tiring couple days. First, I found out that I passed my oncology exam. This was a big relief since i took it 90% asleep ~9 hours after Dane was born after spending the evening prior, when I'd planned on studying, in the delivery room at CDH instead of in the library at Loyola. Glad that is done and behind me...

Also, Larissa had a meeting with the lactation consultants at the hospital today. They said that if she was going to be exclusively breastfeeding that she should be feeding 8 - 12 times/day (Dane currently has 6 feeds per day). The plan now is to breastfeed with some bottle supplementation for 4 feeds per day (during the day) and do 2 full bottles (at midnight and 4am).

We also think that Larissa's milk supply may finally be decreasing. It SHOULD be decreasing since we have tried everything: weaning + benadryl + sudafed + starting the birth control pill. We are still frustrated that nobody told us ahead of time to avoid overpumping to avoid milk oversupply. And we are annoyed that people were hesitant to recommend starting the birth control pill, even when max doses of benadryl + sudafed didn't help at all. After only 2 birth control pills, Larissa's milk supply seems to have decreased by ~25%... magic! But even better than a decrease in her milk volume is the decreased engorgement she experiences between pumpings. She can now sleep between pumpings, even though it is still uncomfortable to sleep in any position other than on her back.

One of Larissa's coworkers from Tyndale, Kendra, visited today. She brought us a pot pie, which was awesome. She also brought her 10-week old daughter, Addison. I'm sure Dane enjoyed starting to meet some people his own age.

We have decided that we should be careful what we wish for... Dane is no longer constipated but now he is having frequent prolific loose stools. He is also getting in the habit of holding just enough poop in reserve to soil his clean diaper within ~6 minutes. We got a "diaper genie" that claims to hold up to 180 diapers without stinking up the room... it seems to work great and the room doesn't stink, but it is starting to feel full and I am dreading opening it to change the bag. I pushed the diapers down earlier today to compress them for some extra space and, in addition to getting a dirty hand, blew a horribly foul smelling breeze into the room.

Finally, Dane got an awesome hair-do today. Like it? :) Clearly Dane likes it.