On the Move!

We have been amazed that in just a few months Lucas has been changing so much! It seems like every day he is learning something new! Tuesday marked his 10 month birthday and I can’t believe that soon we will be planning his first birthday.

Since my last post, we have enjoyed some adventures with our little one. Lucas, my mom and I went to St. Louis to visit some good friends (Adam couldn’t go because he had to work, unfortunately!) and Lucas had some nice photos taken. Some of these are from my Aunt Mary’s house and then some were taken at a nearby park. Thanks again to Erika Vernon Photography for these pictures!

Lucas also had his first visit to the zoo! We went to the Madison zoo with Kyle and Michaela and had a great time!

Our friends Nick and Mindy hosted a Halloween party for all the babies to dress up and it was so cute to see them all together!

For Halloween weekend, Kyle and Michaela visited as well and we dressed up our little superman once again.

Recently, we went to Orlando, Florida, to celebrate Lucas’s first Thanksgiving with the Shaffer side! He did a great job traveling and adapting to a new environment. We had a great time with all the relatives and got to enjoy warm weather at Discovery Cove and Sea World!

 

We are back home getting back into our regular routine and will be heading to Champaign for Lucas’s first Christmas.

As far as development goes, Lucas loves this toy that has a table where he can hold himself up standing! He is able to take some steps with assistance and this boy loves to crawl! It seems like it happened overnight, so we are enjoying every moment!

And here are the latest monthly photos:

Update on our little Lucas!

Tomorrow, Lucas will be seven months. People weren't kidding when they said your children grow so fast. We have been enjoying all the special moments with the little guy and watching him develop over the past few months. Some new developments include smiling, laughing, babbling, teething, rolling over and sitting up (with some assistance). As of his six month check up, his head circumference is 18 inches, his body length is 29 inches and his weight is 17 lbs., 13 oz. He is around the fiftieth percentile for weight but in the ninety-fifth percentile for his head size and body length!

We have had a pretty busy summer traveling to weddings, having family in town and visiting with friends. Lucas was able to see some of the Shaffer and Markiewicz extended family in July when we went out to Pennsylvania. I was a little nervous about remembering to pack everything I needed for Lucas, as well as how he would handle the flights. He did really great on both flights as he slept almost the whole ride each time. Luckily, we didn't have any issues bringing formula through security, although they did have to open one bottle and test it for safety precautions.

We were able to spend some time with Lucas's great-grandparents and took a four generation photo of the Shaffer men! I was so happy to get a picture of them all together:

Once we returned from Pennsylvania, I started introducing solid foods to Lucas. We started with the Gerber single grain baby oatmeal and mixed it with formula. Lucas got the hang of eating from a spoon pretty quickly and now he is eating a wide range of solids. I decided to stick with the Gerber brand, but also want to make my own baby food. Right now, his favorites are sweet potatoes and pears. I started him with the food with the lowest sugar first but now we do a mix of foods with low and higher sugar contents.

One of the bigger developments is that Lucas has his two front bottom teeth in and he is getting two more on the bottom, plus four on the top! Those six are all coming in at the same time so he has been in a lot of pain! I did call the pediatrician when the bottom two first were coming in because he seemed miserable. We gave him some baby Tylenol and that seemed to help a lot, but with these other teeth I am trying to give him the teething rings, a wet washcloth to chew on or these RaZ-berry teethers that our friends Geoff and Jenni gave us! They are textured like a raspberry or blackberry and you can refrigerate them. They seem to work great for Lucas as he doesn't like to hold the teething rings yet.

I am also trying to get Lucas on more of a consistent schedule. It really has varied each day as to what time he gets up and what time we do feedings and naps. I think it would really help the whole family! We are starting Lucas's bedtime routine at the same time each night and hope that will help start us on the right track. I'm sure there will be days that we deviate from this schedule, but for the most part I'd like to stick with it.

I'm posting some more monthly photos below and will post the seven month one soon!

Book Review: Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why It Shouldn't

I first heard about Suzanne Barston's blog, The Fearless Formula Feeder (http://www.fearlessformulafeeder.com/), after I had difficulties nursing my son earlier this year. I had taken the prepared childbirth classes and a breastfeeding class to be ready for the responsibilities that came with our new arrival.

In the hospital, nursing seemed to go well, but my son only had to nurse for short amounts of time while we were there. When we came home, I tried many times to successfully nurse him, but had several struggles. He wasn’t able to latch correctly, which caused me pain to the point of tears. Eventually, nursing became something I dreaded. I didn’t feel the bond that I heard about in my breastfeeding class. I met with a lactation consultant, who tried to help me get him latched correctly, but came home having incredible pain. I still tried to nurse, but also started pumping in the hopes that even if we couldn’t get the latch down, he would still be getting my milk. Being attached to a pump, however, didn’t allow me the time I wanted to be spending with my son. I was in constant worry that I wasn’t pumping enough milk even though I was pumping every few hours and so sad that I was attached to this machine while other people held and rocked my son.

With the support of my husband, I decided after a month of pumping to switch to formula. For me it came down to the fact that I was stressing out over pumping all the time and not getting that quality time with him.

Once I went to formula, I tried to find formula feeding moms support groups. I thought since there are plenty of breastfeeding support groups and organizations, there has to be formula feeding groups. However, I was disappointed to find out there wasn’t much out there but did stumble across Barston’s blog. I picked up this book at the library and was so relieved to read that many people had experienced what I had. Barston describes what scientific studies really show (correlation vs. causation) and combines that information with personal experiences—both her own and others—to show how the focus of “breast is best” leads many of us to feel like failures as mothers if we can’t breastfeed babies. She outlines the challenges of pumping when women return to work and how we should instead be offering more information and resources to women instead of assuming all women will be able to breastfeed. I really could relate to her point that many women don’t know about properly preparing formula and this isn’t taught to them by the nurses in the hospital or in much of the literature women read prior to their delivery.

I think Barston sums the purpose of this book quite nicely in her introduction of the book:

                “Mostly, though, this book is for the woman who is in tears, with cracked nipples and a screaming baby whom she can’t mother because she is constantly hooked up to a pump, who wants so badly to quit breastfeeding and finds nothing but fear-and-guilt-inducing literature everywhere she turns.”

This is one of the most helpful books I have read both pre- and post-pregnancy and I encourage other women facing difficulties breastfeeding to pick up a copy. My only regret is not reading this sooner!

Baby Lucas has arrived!

This is long overdue, but we are happy to announce we had our baby boy, Lucas Connor Shaffer at 9:44 p.m. on Sunday, February 9th!

Here's the full story....

On Thursday, February 6th, I had a nice day going out to breakfast with Adam and my mom, and doing a little shopping. That night I had some signs of labor (I will spare you the details), so I called my doctor and he advised us to go to the hospital. When I got there, I was checked and the nurse said I was only one centimeter dilated so it would be awhile. For the next few hours I was hooked onto the fetal monitor for about 45 minutes, then taken off the monitor so I could walk in the hallway (I was told walking can help labor progress). A few hours later I was at one and a half centimeters, so my doctor had me stay the night to see if things were further along in the morning. I had to be put on the fetal monitor for 20 minutes every two hours, so Adam and I didn't get much sleep that night. By the morning, labor hadn't progressed enough for me to stay at the hospital so I went home to wait it out. I was offered the option of induction, but I really wanted labor to happen naturally so I decided to head home and play the waiting game.

On Sunday morning, I woke up around 6:00 a.m. with some cramping and thought maybe that was a sign we would have the baby soon. The cramps were coming about 15 minutes apart, and they were really mild. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon keeping track of how long and how far apart I had the contractions. By 3:00 p.m., they were five minutes apart, lasting about a minute and a half and a lot more intense than they had started. We called the doctor and he said to head over to the hospital. Once I arrived, the nurse checked me and said I was about three to four centimeters dilated, but then 20 minutes later my doctor checked me and said I was already at six centimeters! He then broke my water (which I thought would really hurt, but I didn't feel it at all!) and a bunch of nurses came in to get my IV hooked up and raise my bed. It really felt overwhelming that I was over halfway through dilation and everything was happening so fast that I started crying! I was so excited to meet our son and nervous at the same time about what the rest of labor would be like for me. The contractions continued and once I got to eight centimeters, the contractions were so close together it was hard to recover from one before the next one hit me. I really was hoping to get through labor without an epidural but at that point I was so exhausted from being in labor for 13 hours that I decided to go ahead and get one. Once I had the epidural I felt like I could rest for a bit, but then within two hours my doctor arrived and said it was time to push. I only had to go through three series of pushes and in less than 10 minutes, our baby was born!

I was so overcome with emotion at that point. Once I saw our son being born, I looked at Adam and we both had tears in our eyes. I will never forget that special moment! I was able to do the skin-to-skin contact with Lucas right away, which was one of my goals for the birth. Lucas was a very healthy newborn and scored very well on his initial assessments. He was 21 inches long and 8 lbs., 2 oz.

My parents were able to be at the hospital when he was born and my brother, Kyle, and his wife, Michaela, arrived shortly after Lucas was born. Michaela and Kyle brought a onesie and wrote Lucas's name and birthday on the onesie and everyone who came to visit him at the hospital (as well as the nurses who helped us) were able to sign it. I thought that was such a cute idea as a keepsake from the birth. We stayed in the hospital for two days and then were released home.

The first few days home went pretty well. We first had him in his crib in the nursery, but eventually set up the pack 'n play which has a bassinet and he has been sleeping in there ever since. The first few weeks were a big adjustment, but now Lucas is sleeping almost completely through the night and seems to be on a more regular schedule. He is a great baby and very happy most of the time! Adam and I feel very blessed to have a healthy and happy little guy. Below are some photos from the hospital and his first and second month photos.