Lukas in his first 2 weeks

I'll have to say the first two weeks of parenthood has been quite an adjustment - and super exhausting!!



Our first difficulty was deciding on a name - I think we went through about three names in 2 days before we happily settled on Lukas Neil - just before leaving the hospital. It took us a while - but we're really happy with it, and it seems to fit the little guy well.



Lukas was a pretty sleepy little baby the first few days, which made breastfeeding extremely challenging. He just had no interest in eating and would rather sleep. So, despite working with several lactation counselors, little Lukas lost a little too much weight, dropping down to 6.8lbs from his 7.4lbs birthweight - and worrying me to bits! Of course, then I was stressed out, which also did not help matters. Thankfully, though, my mom came to town for the weekend - and helped calm me down. My milk started coming in, and Lukas started eating pretty well. By the 10th he was back up to 7.2lbs, so the eating was finally coming along.



Unfortunately, Lukas also had jaundice from not eating well the first two days, and had developed quite the case of thrush. I felt so bad - I had no idea to be on the look out for thrush, and I thought the white patches in his mouth were just milk...so he had for several days before the doctor noticed it. This left us giving Lukas icky sticky banana syrup medicine for the thrush and sun-bathing Lukas to help get rid of the jaundice. I guess my labor and delivery went so well - there had to be problems somewhere!!!



However, things are finally starting to go a little smoother - Lukas is healthy & eating like champ. His umbilical cord stub fell off yesterday - now he has the cutest little belly! He still doesn't sleep very much; we are lucky to get a three hour stretch, so I am pretty exhausted. I'm having a hard time mastering the art of "burping" - which is probably part of the problem. I'll burp Lukas for like 10 minutes after he eats - and nothing - then as soon as a lay him down, he starts spitting up everywhere, so I pick him back up - he falls asleep in my arms, I lay him down - and once again...he's fussing or hic-cupping or spitting up! So - if anyone has any suggestions for burping babies - I'd love to hear them.



I have a ton of pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/DemetraAnne/Lukas#



Oh - and I was still in Amanda's wedding on the 4th - it was beautiful - she did an excellent job making it an event to cherish a lifetime :) It was so fun to see all my friends - and thankfully my mom was able to come with and help us with Lukas. The bridesmaid dress was definitely a crazy rush - I called the seamstress on wednedsay to tell her to stop what she was doing with the dress - I had the baby. I went it in to have the dress refitted on thursday - and Matt picked it up for me saturday morning. It was a little big - but did the trick. Here are some pictures from the wedding: http://picasaweb.google.com/DemetraAnne/AmandaSWedding#