Surprise! Nana's Visit.

Dear Conrad,

After Poppy and Gigi left and your dad came back from rehearsal, there wasn't much time to ourselves before Nana and Papa came to visit you. Nana had a surprise for us: After Papa left the next day, she was going to stay with us for an entire week!

From your first outing (besides leaving the hospital), October 20th, 2012. We were eating at a pub called Flat Branch in Columbia, Missouri, with Nana and Papa. You still look pretty jaundiced here, but it was starting to get better. I knitted the pumpkin hat for you just before you were born.

It was ... awkward, to say the least. I appreciated having her there when, at 7 o'clock in the morning, you had woken for the umpteenth time and I could really, really use an hour of deep sleep before I had to take your dad to class. I was still taking my pain pills from the surgery, and moving was very difficult. However, Nana wasn't able to help me clean the apartment or drive your dad to class (both things I was not supposed to be doing while I was on medication) so I had to continue doing them on my own.

Having Nana there also made it difficult to nurse or pump milk for you, since she could just whip up a bottle of formula for you without bothering anyone. I started to think that everyone was trying to sabotage my nursing efforts, and it made me angry.

One week old here. Boone Hospital (where you were born) provided all the babies with a swaddling wrap. You didn't hate the swaddle like some babies, but you would wriggle in them until you could get an arm loose.
I had just changed you, and you were staring out the window in this picture. You loved seeing and being outdoors as a baby.

The day you turned one week old, a nurse provided by Medicaid came out to see you. She weighed you and performed a basic check-up. I was ecstatic to hear that not only had you gained weight, but you were already two full ounces over your birth weight! What a huge relief to hear that you were going to be okay, and I started to feel less angry about the formula since that is probably what helped you gain that weight back the most. Then she casually mentioned that she thought she heard a heart murmur though, and that put me back on edge. She did try to reassure me that it was probably nothing, and she may have misheard altogether. I would have bought that, except when we went to visit with your normal pediatrician the next day she also thought she heard a heart murmur, so she scheduled an appointment for an ultrasound on your heart. So scary!