First Post: August 7th, 2009

The notorious Kagemonster was born on July 19th, 2009 at 2:07pm. He weighed 6lbs, 11oz and was 19 inches long. My labor was a little over 14 hours long, most of that was spent with an epidural, so very comfortably, surrounded by my best friends and my grandmother. I had the most wonderful nurse in the world, Stephanie. I still need to send her a thank you card, she made labor better than it already was with her great personality and vulgar humor.

I gave birth to my Kagemonster before even the doctor was ready. Since then it has been a rollercoaster. The first two days were spend in the hospital (blech) because of the doctor I had been going to...they never bothered to give me a certain test, so the hubby and I were stuck in the hospital, wishing we could sleep for 2 days instead of just 1. It was boring and there was no sleep...and after 14 hours of labor...I NEEDED sleep. The constant poking and prodding and underwear checking became more than too much after the first day. It gets old real quick when some douchebag comes in at 3am to stab you in the back of the hand (the most painful place to get blood from), I made sure to have pain meds before he came in. Then I had someone else coming in about every 2 hours to check my blood pressure and temperature...now I understand that this is necessary...but it makes for a hellish night when you're trying to establish breast feeding, sleep, care for your first child who has gas, eat and go to the bathroom (which at this point, is a 15 minute ordeal, dabbing at stitches, rinsing with water, stinging foofoo, etc.). By the 4th time, I was ready to stab someone.

Anyway, since I brought my beautiful Kagemonster home we've had so many ups and downs. The first couple of days were completely without sleep, add that on to the first 2 days without sleep and the hubby and I were completely delerious. By the time I actually got sleep...oh wait, that hasn't happened yet. Will let you know when it does.

Kage is a wonderful baby. He is beautiful and sweet and snuggly...but he has terrible gas. His poor little tummy hurts almost everytime he eats. He does better with breastmilk than formula, but I can't seem to produce enough milk to feed him exclusively. Sometimes I feel like my body has betrayed me, and really it has, but most people chock it up so stress and tell me to keep pumping. I'm not sure how much pumping they expect me to do...I think my nipples are going to fall off. To get the little one to burp at all we have to immediately bounce him on our knees RIGHT after he eats until he burps once or twice, then I have to burp him on my chest...and hope he will actually burp, which he usually won't. When he won't he ends up screaming for hours on end and there isn't too much I can do, except give him Mylacon, which works, but he goes through it so fast we can barely keep up.

Daddy has been wonderful, though I do wish he could wake up when Kagemonster does more often. He usually sleeps through the crying, though I have no idea how. From the back of the house I can hear him crying, and Daddy sleeps right next to him.

So we're pretty much updated I think, unless we get into the drama that is my everyday, and I don't really feel like writing about that. So, here we go about today. :)

Kagemonster slept pretty regularly last night. He went to bed around 2am, I went to bed around 3-3:30am. Kage was up at 4, back down at 5, up at 6, back down at 6:30, up at 8, back down at 9:30...by 10am I was done, completely exhausted. I woke Daddy up at 10 so I could hopefully get some sleep. Daddy comes in at 10:45...Kage is constipated and has gas. Hasn't pooped in almost 2 days. I start calling people to see if anyone knows what to do to get him to poop because Daddy says his tummy is hard as a rock. We're both concerned, our little boy is in pain. This isn't okay.

I got off the phone with only one suggestion...rub his little butthole with a warm washcloth. This sounds terribly appealing...but I'll do it anyway just to make him feel better. Not 5 minutes later Daddy walks by the bassinet..."Oh my god, someone either farted or pooped." Picks Kage up and takes him to the changing table, "Kes, could you come over here and help me?". Of course I'll help, since when would I say no? So I make my way over there just as Daddy's opening the diaper...the second he sees the wonderful, HUGE "present" Kage has left us, he starts salivating, seconds away from tossing his cookies all over the place. I honestly didn't know a baby, a not even 3 week old baby, could fill a diaper like this, it was incredible! Daddy runs off, seriously afraid he's going to throw up all over the kitchen, me laughing at him the whole time. Honestly, I can handle a lot, but that diaper even had me gagging a little.

It's 10:20pm right now and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, since I only got about a combined total of about 3 and a half hours of sleep last night. I will be back tomorrow to write about our day...hopefully it's as peaceful as today was, but with a little more sleep.