Two weeks and counting

Jacob has been home two and a half weeks now.  His due date is in about a week…still a little crazy to think about.

No weight update, unfortunately.  But it looks like I should stop trying to force him into premie size clothes.  Newborn, here we come!

He’s actually acting very much like a normal newborn, more so than I had expected.  He’s spending more time awake, and he’s as noisy as ever.  (Did I mention that?  Even the first couple of weeks the nurses in NICU commented on how noisy Jacob was – always grunting or cooing or at least breathing loudly.  He fits right in at our house!)

We still have follow-up appointments for hearing tests, development tests, vision tests…it feels like a long list.  But, thank God, everything looks good so far.

Of course his brother and sisters adore him, and I have to fight for my turn to hold him, or even change his diaper!

Our big challenge right now is trying to transition from bottles to breastfeeding.  Which includes convincing my body to make enough milk to keep him growing.  Still not even close.  So we’re using a supplementary nursing system, plus pumping, which means I spend 3/4 of my day on some aspect of Jacob feeding – pumping, nursing, making bottles, heating bottles, cleaning bottles…and occasionally I eat and/or sleep myself.

We would be up a creek if the girls (and Isaac, for that matter!) weren’t so helpful.  Lucy practically runs the house, and she really does at least as good a job as I do.  She’s making red beans for supper as I write this.  I am doing the very important work of keeping Jacob asleep.  It looks a little like this:

So technically I am still writing “while they are sleeping”…but also while they are cooking, dancing, playing violin, climbing trees, sewing, and playing family, or orphanage, or something similar.  It’s a full life.