Breken Wayne Smith

It has taken me a while to post because Breken Wayne Smith finally decided Thursday morning to make his debut! At 1am I just had a twinge of cramping/labor pains, and wasn't even sure it was labor until it was consistent (about a half hour) and it didn't hurt at all, just annoying. By 1:30am I got out of bed and thought to myself I was pretty sure this was labor, but I would take a shower and keep my mind off the annoyance until the contractions were 5 mins apart before heading to the hospital, as advised in our Labor of Love class. At 3am I woke Kevin up and we left the house about 3:30am (contractions were about 5 mins apart), and during our drive the contractions continually got closer together, VERY quickly. We arrived at the Labor and Delivery department of the hospital around 3:45pm and I spit Breken out at 4:12am. I had my heart set on an epidural, but there was no time for anything! I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Breken Wayne Smith was born at 4:12am, weighing 8.3 pounds and was 20 ¾ inches long.
We stayed in the hospital one night and I couldn't wait to get home because the hospital is sooo noisy and with shared rooms, two moms with two new babies isn't quite wonderful. But once we got home my milk hadn't come in, so we struggled a few days with Breken being hungry and me not providing enough substance to fill his little tum-tum. I called the “on-call doctor” Saturday and Sunday and he said to keep trying to breast feed and give my milk time to come in, but meanwhile, Breken was starving, and horribly gassy from sucking so hard and getting very little colostrum, so he was awake and screaming (in pain) for most of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. It made mommy a BASKET case feeling so guilty that I couldn’t comfort my precious son! Finally Monday morning I was able to speak with my doctor’s office and they said to supplement with formula right away. Yay! Poor little man was famished and LOVED getting formula and a full tummy! Now he's such a happy baby, which makes mommy happy!

We saw Dr. Schill Monday at 1pm Monday (that appointment couldn't get here fast enough!) and Breken had gone from 8.3lbs at birth to 7.4lbs in just 4 days, and his jaundice had worsened. Dr. Schill said she would have had me supplement sooner if she had known—so much for “on-call doctor” advice. Now we're feeding like crazy and making up for lost weight! At today’s visit Breken is back to 7.11lbs. GOOOOO BREKEN!

I think my milk is starting to come in today, so the next challenge will be to see if we can switch from the easy bottle to the breast where he’ll have to work a little harder. I'm okay with him staying on formula if it doesn't work, so long as he isn't going hungry.
Kevin has been WONDERFUL support, and I always knew he would be a fabulous father, but he is even more fabulous than I ever imagined! So loving and nurturing, and jumps right in. I didn’t change a single diaper the first day. While holding Breken a couple nights ago Kevin asked me if I would get him a spoon so he could eat Breken up. How cute is he??!! LOVE my husband and our precious son. Breken should be waking anytime now, so I better wrap this up for today. Now that he’s feeling better, I’m able to get a few things done, so I do hope to post more frequently. Stay tuned for the next “Breken News” update.