Update

I should change the name of this blog to "It's always an adventure with Dave & Levi..." :)

As some of you may have read on our Baby Blog (link to the left), Levi Reuben was born on July 31st, his Uncle Brian's birthday, at 1:56 a.m. Since then, our lives have been one huge adventure. And of course, I've found little time to blog in the past month. So I figured I should at least give a monthly update...

It has been an interesting month as we adjust to having a little boy. About 4 days after Levi was born I was feeling lots better, so I think I overdid it doing housework, etc., Levi became jaundice (fortunately that passed without treatment), and we had issues with breastfeeding. Then 1 week into it, I developed a very high fever. That whole weekend was horrible. My fever peaked at about 103 degrees. My teeth were chattering, I felt horrible, etc. The midwife suspected it was mastitis but there were not a lot of clear signs, so I ended up on a broad antibiotic to treat whatever infection was present causing the fever. Anyways, it was a very long 3 days of misery as Levi went thru a hungry phase and ate about every hour and all I wanted to do was sleep...So, the overdoing it and then the infection lead me to not feel like doing much again until the 2 week mark.

I was so glad that over the first 10 days or so, we had a lot of people here helping us to cope with life. That was a tremendous blessing. First, my parents were here then Dave's parents then my sister Emily. But by the end of all that, I was ready for it to be back to just us. 

After that, we went to the midwife for a 2 week checkup and realized that Levi, although he'd gained a half pound the first week, had now lost weight. And he was extremely fussy and had mucus in his stools. So...we had to make some adjustments with breastfeeding and we're still working on striking a balance so that his stomach is not upset, etc.

Nowadays, he's eating about every 2 hours but also having a couple periods of cluster feeding where he eats almost nonstop for hours on end. Especially at night right before bed. But we think he does it so that he can not be hungry in the night and can sleep longer. That I love. Breastfeeding for 3-4 hours almost nonstop I do not love. He's had a couple nights in the last week where he slept 6-8 hours. Those were lovely!

We have not gotten out much as Levi has been a pretty fussy baby for his first month of life. We went to church when he was 2 weeks old. He started crying halfway thru the service so we took him out. I fed him twice, he pooped twice and he peed all over the changing table in the nursery before the service was out. Then he cried when people tried to get a look at him in the hallway. We skipped church last Sunday and then tried again yesterday. He was a much better baby at church this time around. He slept in the Baby Bjorn on my chest all the way thru first service, and we were sitting on the second row :) Then we went to Sunday School. He got a little fussy so I left and fed him. Afterwards I changed his diaper and rather than screaming like he usually does, he smiled at the nursery volunteers :) And he didn't get too upset when people wanted to greet him this time around. Then last night, we went to the grocery, and once again, he was a pretty good boy.

This leads us to think that we may possibly be able to go home to Ohio soon for a visit. We were beginning to think for a while that that would never happen (since he was so fussy and hates his carseat, etc.)

Well, gotta go now. Levi is crying for momma :)