1st Month AKA the month of 1000 formulas

So we brought Aiden home after his three day visit in the hospital. While in the hospital Aiden's feedings were supplemented with Similac Advance. He seemed to be okay with this while we were in the hospital, but when we came home he seemed a bit more aggitated by the formula. He seemed to be struggling or even in pain.

So, as new parents wanting to do what is best for our son, and having recieved about 6 cans of different sample formulas to try, we switched Aiden to the Enfamil Lipil. For a couple of days this seemed to work out just fine, but by the third or fourth day we were right back to the painful arched back baby. So we switched again, this time trying the Similac Soy formula. No better results found there.

After a couple of days of struggling we called the pediatricians office and were told that babies are not able to just switch their formula willy nilly. It isn't like an adult who can choose to have a hamburger for lunch and then eat a pizza for dinner. No... The baby has to get accustomed to the formula, which can take a good four to five days. So we were recommended to go back to the Enfamil and give it a week and see what happened.

A week passed and our baby is arching his back, spitting up, and generally not happy with the way things are after his feeding. He eats, oh yes, the boy can suck down a bottle. But he is in pain afterwards. We call the pediatrician again, the nurse recommends we try Gentlease, another enfamil product with partially broken down protiens so it is easier on the baby's stomach.

We switch formulas, and notice an almost immediate difference. Yay! Aiden seems to be tolerating this formula better. Well not so fast my friend. About 4-5 days after starting on the Gentlease, we are right back to the painful arched back and struggling. We keep him on it for a little longer trying to see if things work themselves out... they don't.

Another call to the pediatricians office. Try Lactofree. This one has no lactose and still has the broken down protiens. Raquel is lactose intolerant, so this might make sense. We bring home the Lactofree and again, notice an immediate improvement. But no, once again after a week or so the pain returns.

I have always been a researcher, since I discovered the internet I look everything up. Being a parent has been no different. I go into reading all sorts of different message boards and interesting infant sights, and from what other parents are experiencing, I think my son has Acid Reflux. All of the symptoms sound familiar, spitting up, arching the back, not sleeping well, etc. Many of the parents who have posted this experience stated that their pediatricians refused to diagnose their children with Acid Reflux, or GERD, instead calling the baby colicy and telling them to deal with it until the baby grows out of it. So Raquel and I prepare a list of all of our arguments why we think that Aiden has Acid Reflux.

I had to work the day Raquel took Aiden in to see the doctor, but Raquel took him in, showed the doctor the list and basically said the doctor looked at the list and said "Yep. Yep. Yep. My second son had the exact same symptoms, we will put him on Nutramigen and Zantac twice a day and he should see improvement". No arguments. No push back at all. What a relief, our doctor agrees that there is a problem and gives us a solution to fix it. Hoorah!

Aiden at this point is 4 weeks old. We try the nutramigen and Zantac and low and behold, we have improvement. Still not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the arched back is gone as is most of the painful grunting.

So month one was the month of one thousand formulas. Eventually we got it to the point where he could tolerate, and that is good. It would take awhile longer to get him to be overly pleased, and I am still to this day not really sure if we have the mixture right, but we are on the right track, and with a baby, that is a very good thing.

Other tidbits from the first month:

-We brought Aiden home on Tuesday. He weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces at birth and 20.5 inches long.

-The Thursday after we brought Aiden home our Air conditioner broke down. In Nashville we had one of the hottest June-Augusts on record. Aiden and his momma went and stayed at grandma and grandpa's house while daddy stayed home with the pets. Eventually a friend fixed the air for us, but it was a tough couple of days.

-Aiden didn't sleep very well in his basinet yet. His basinet by the way is a family heirloom over 100 years old. Aiden's prefered sleeping place, sleeping on top of his boppie pillow in daddy's lap in the office chair while daddy has his feet propped up on the desk. Aiden and Daddy averaged a couple of hours a night of sleep in this position for the first week or so.

-With both Mommy and Daddy off work this week a nice fairly balanced schedule was worked out where Daddy, being a night owl, took care of the feedings and changing until 4am, after which time it was mommy's turn to get up with him. This allowed both parents to get, if not enough sleep, at least a decent amount.

-Aiden likes to spend a lot of time in his swing. The rocking motion lets momma sleep for a couple of extra hours in the morning.

-Aiden had a pretty good bout of Baby Acne to deal with. His cheeks were very red and pimply much of the time.

- Aiden got to meet his new friend Clark who was born just before Aiden.

- at 1 month old Aiden weighed in at 10 pounds 5 ounces and was 21 inches long.

And Baby Makes Three

This post is the story of the day Aiden way born. Like all parents, even though the day itself has been some time ago, all of the memories remain fresh, as we will never forget the birth of our children.

Friday night July 20th was just another average night in our household. Our doctor had scheduled an inducement for Monday, July 23rd and we really didn't think Aidenw as going to come before then. But at about midnight things started happening. Raquel wasn't really sure that her first contractions were actual contractions, so she didn't tell me. Maybe I subconsciously knew anyway, I couldn't sleep that night. I was sitting on the computer typing away, when at 2am Raquel let me know she was feeling contractions and they were getting closer together. At about 3am Raquel decided she needed to read between contractions... Well the only thing Raquel will read is Harry Potter, and at midnight the last Harry Potter book had gone on sale. Suddenly I find myself out on a quest to buy the new Potter novel for my wife who is in the early stages of labor.

Fortunately, our Kroger is a 24 hour store, and I was able to pick up the book there and get back home quickly.

As morning approached the contractions started to get more regular and stronger. between 4 and 5am we timed out the contractions at the 5 minute regularity which is the suggested time for you to go to the hospital. So we grab our bags, and start headed down to Summit Medical Center where Aiden will be born. We had pre-registered with the hospital, so we thought it would just be a matter of going in and giving our name and going to the room. No such luck. We had to check in at the ER since the regular hospital was not open yet, and they had to ask several questions before getting us to our room. Keep in mind, Raquel is having contractions while answering the questions.

Finally we get to the room and they get Raquel hooked up to the monitors that will be keeping track of her progress. The nurse checked her cervix and she was only one centimeter dialated. We were told that they would keep her on the monitors for about an hour and if she had not dialated any further we would be sent home to allow the early parts of labor pass in the comfort of our home rather than the hospital setting.

The next hour was relatively uneventful. Around 7:30 we got a call from Raquel's parents, who had just arrived at the hospital and did not know where to go. We had called them on the way to the hospital, but told them not to come yet because we did not know if we were going to be staying or not. I went out to the lobby to bring them into the room, while the nurse checked on Raquel again.

As I brought her parents to the room, the nurse yelled at us not to come in yet and had the curtain drawn across the entry. Turns out, while I was gone, Raquel's water had broken. The nurse had been just about ready to tell Raquel to get dressed so she could go home until things progressed further, but that wasn't going to happen now. We were officially staying at the hospital and having this baby.

Raquel had always figured she was going to have the epidural, but she wanted to try to go without it for as long as possible. Well about 9am was when she decided she wanted to get it done. Getting the epidural put in was tough. Raquel said it was one of the most painful things she had ever been through. At one point I had to step out of the room because I was getting light headed. It was really difficult being there watching my wife be in so much pain and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Finally they had the epidural in, but raquel was "leaking" blood around both the epidural and her IV.

So the nurse starts cleaning up and trying to get the IV positioned so that there is no bleeding, when suddenly there are five nurses in our room including the head nurse who asks our nurse "Why haven't you done anything about this yet?!" The monitor shows that Aiden's heart rate has ducked down below the blue "normal" bar. They put Raquel on some oxygen and Aiden's heart rate comes back up. So everything is okay right? For the moment.

Over the next hour Raquel is not feeling the contractions anymore and things seem to have slowed back down. but occationally Aiden's heart rate is still dropping. We are waiting for the doctor to arrive so that she can make a determination. About 10:30 she arrives and starts checking things out. They had tried to put a monitor directly in with the baby at one point before the doctor's arrival and discovered that the placenta had not completely broken, so the doctor came in and officially broke Raquel's water again. Aiden's heart rate was still fluctuating more than the doctor liked so she started preparing us for the idea that we may have to go in for a C-section.

At approximately 10:45 the doctor made the call that we needed to have a C-section and we needed to go NOW. Well now seemed to take about 10 minutes and didn't feel like they were rushing enough. But the staff seem to know what they are doing and in no time we are rolling to the OR. I was asked to wait outside of the operating room while they prepped Raquel and I got on my scrubs. I sat nervously waiting for the okay to go in, not knowing whatr was going on, if the baby was okay, if my wife was okay. Finally a nurse comes out and tells me I can come in. I walk into the room and see a lot of red. I avoid looking at my wife's open stomach and go directly to the chair by her side, behind the curtain and hold her hand. After just a few seconds it seemed the anesthesiologist asks if we want to see our baby, and points over the top of the curtain. The first view I had of my son was a yellowish blob of goo being held over my wife. Then we heard him cry and we knew he would be okay.

The nurses took the baby over to the little heater station they use to clean him up and the doctor started to work on putting my wife back together again. The staff are all just having this conversation like they aren't sitting there putting some person's insides back in place. Yeah, this is routine for them, it was just kind of odd for me to be listening to. One of the nurses brings Aiden over and hands him to me. By this time, they have given Raquel some additional medication that makes her sleepy, so we have to wake her up to get her first good look at our baby. She turns and looks at him, smiles, and then closes her eyes again.

At that point the nurse says "you can take your baby down to the nursery for me". I wanted to protest, I knew my baby was okay. I wanted to stay with my wife and make sure she was okay. That wasn't an option though, I was guided out of the OR taking my baby back to the nursery. The last view I had of my wife was her closing her eyes and her head dropping to the pillow. The next hour was both a delight in getting to spend those first few moments with my new baby, and the scariest time of my life not knowing what was going on in the Operating Room, not knowing if Raquel was okay.

Of course eventually they rolled Raquel back to her room, and she got to really get a good look at her new baby boy, and everything was okay. It didn't go the way we had prepped for it in birthing class, but our baby had arrived and he was healthy. Thus began our journey into parenthood. A shaky start, but a good one.

Introducing Aiden

The next several posts I hope to post later today will be some of the background on Aiden and what has transpired over the last 3 months. Just kind of an overview of how Aiden and Aiden's Daddy got to where they are today.

If I follow the "plan" the first post after this one will be a rememberance of Aiden's birthday and how, no matter how much you read, or how many classes you go to, birth never goes according to the textbook, and in our case that was very apparant.

Following that I am going to try to go back and do a post for each month of Aiden's life so far to bring us right up to date with all of the events and experiences and sleepless nigths that a little one can bring.

But all that will come a little later. For now Aiden is in his bouncer seat and daddy is going to try to get a little more sleep before facing the day.

Welcome to Our Blog

Greetings everyone and welcome to my blog. I should actually say OUR blog, since this is going to be mostly about the wonders of being a new parent, and there would be no wonders of parenthood without a baby. So this blog is about me, but it is also about Aiden. My wife will likely play a role as well from time to time, since she has a part in this whole thing to.

So a brief introduction. My name is Mike Molloy I am "Aiden's Daddy" and a newbie at this daddy thing, my wife is Raquel, we are in our early 30's and three months ago we welcomed our first child into the world. His name is Aiden, and we are super proud of him. Before Aiden was born Raquel and I sat down and looked at our finances and decided that we could afford for me to cut back from my full-time job to working part-time and staying home with Aiden during the day. That allows us to be free of daycare for the moment, and makes me something of a "stay-at-home" dad.

We live in Nashville Tennessee, which is where Raquel grew up, and her family is here. So we have a great support network behind us. My parents are three hours drive away and we get the opportunity to see them often, so Aiden's grandparents are deffinately a part of this story too.

I hope to post daily, but sometimes the posts may come every couple of days, depending on what is going on in our little world. So stop by frequently. Feel free to post comments. If you know someone who is a new daddy or is about to become one, or might one day become one, send them on by. I hope to post a lot of good tips and tricks for how we make it through Aiden's first years.

Thanks for stopping by! See you soon!