Starvin' Marvin, Wailin' Caelan, Tongue-tie, Oh My!

The title about sums up our first few days from the hospital. I had wondered why our wailin' Caelan was quickly returned from the nursery after a feeding, and I suspected that he might be hungry. After visiting with the lactation consultant the next morning, she took one look at his mouth and said, he has a tongue-tie (before anyone gets too worried, it's the cord of tissue called the frenula under the tongue). Apparently, it's too short and not allowing him to fully extend his tongue to nurse effectively. Micah also had a tongue-tie, but not nearly as bad as Caelan's. Friday night was a dejavu first night home experience ---incessant, inconsolable crying, ALL night long just like Micah. I nursed about every 45 minutes, and Patrick held him in a football hold in the recliner all night, the only way he would really settle. Somehow that dream of a third child was fading away into the far distant future....

Saturday morning, our first pediatric visit, confirmed Caelan lost 12 ounces (almost 10% of his birthweight) and the doctor told me to supplement him with formula until my milk came in. Thank God that very afternoon - the Lord heard and answered with a whole LOTTA milk-- so much so, I didn't even buy a pump (or any bottles for that matter, was purely trying to breastfeed) and had to borrow my friend Kathy's pump so I wasn't in so much pain.

On Sunday, with great relief, he slept ALL DAY AND NIGHT and I had to wake him up to nurse him several times. He is a much happier baby, already looking plumper, and now mom can rest for a whopping two hours at a time. Woo hoo! Today, we visited the ENT, who confirmed the tongue-tie, and Caelan painlessly got his frenula snipped (sounds a lot worse than it is), cried for maybe ten seconds and promptly fell asleep. He just now nursed quite a bit so I think it's helping. We're off to a much better start for our adventure. Now, off to sleep I go...