The Richmond Family

Sleeping oh so soundly on Grammie.

What's with the hands? Jackson will sleep like this about half of the time or more. :)

Snug in the pj's Grammie gave me!

You're so comfortable daddy.

Oh! He's attacking me!

I just love soft froggies!

Just after my first bath! Ooooh.. I really liked the warm water. :)

The darned cutest thinker...

Being held is so much fun...so is holding

Great news to report, and thanks to all for your prayers. Yesterday we were a bit anxious heading in for the appointment with the pediatrician. After Jackson had been losing weight, the goal we were given was to feed him as much as possible to bring his weight back up and to combat the jaundice. The hardest part was feeding about every 2 hours, which only gave Audra forty-five minutes or so to rest between each feeding. When he refused to nurse, because he was too tired or not hungry enough, we would have to switch to a bottle of pumped milk and feed him anyway. The pediatrician was looking for even a token weight gain of half an ounce to an ounce to demonstrate that his weight had stabilized and that he was on his way back up. Little Jack surprised us all by gaining a full 7 ounces in 24 hours. Wow! Almost half a pound in a day. It’s a good thing Daddy doesn’t gain weight like that. :) With that success we no longer have to wake him up every two hours to feed him. Phew. Our new goal is to take away all the bottles and get him back entirely to nursing. The little guy started getting a little lazy relying on the bottle. Through it all he continues to be darn cute and getting cuter every day.

Jackson – “Folks have already been asking why there haven’t been any new photos posted of me in the past 24 hours. Give a little guy a break would ya...no, really, I understand...but in all seriousness I just had a pretty rough day yesterday and, well, today I’ve been busy learning a few new tricks. I’m getting tired again, so I’ll let Daddy take it for me from here. ‘Till next time…”

DOCTORS, DOCTORS, DOCTORS

It all started after a restless night of sleep at the first of two regularly scheduled doctor appointments. First stop: the pediatrician. Let me just say here that God has blessed us immensely with a host of wonderful doctors at every stage all within 10-15 minutes of home in a short line along the same route in the same part of town. So convenient. We first met Jackson’s very helpful and sweet primary pediatrician when she visited Audra and little Jack in the hospital after delivery before discharge, so we already looked forward to working with her in the future. At the appointment she was slightly concerned that Jackson was a little jaundiced and wanted to keep an eye on it so she had us go back to the hospital to take some more blood from his heel. After that we headed to the office of Audra’s doctor who had delivered Jackson for his circumcision. That, of course, was very traumatic for him, but fortunately he was able to sleep quite a bit afterwards. The down side of him sleeping more was his decreased interest in eating, which would have helped the jaundice. Vicious cycle. By then it was late afternoon and we had been running around the entire day between all of the doctors and a couple necessary stops at the store. Needless to say we were exhausted.

Today we returned to the pediatrician and the hospital to check his bilirubin yet again. Fortunately things haven’t gotten any worse and we received some good tips for getting him more interested and patient in nursing. Thankfully it paid off and we had much more success getting him to nurse better and eat more, so hopefully he will quickly start gaining his weight back and we can put this whole jaundice business behind us soon.

BIRTH WEIGHT—THE SAGA CONTINUES…

In an earlier post I said we were skeptical when one of the many hospital nurses assured us his birth weight was 9 lbs. 4 oz. It seems our skepticism was well founded. After a thorough discussion with the pediatrician and reviewing of actual hospital records in her office (ones we hadn’t even seen) she was finally able to sort out all of the confusion. First of all she told us that when quickly weighed the first time immediately after delivery he came out at 9 lbs 0.4 (not 4.0) oz. and that somehow when passed from nurse to nurse, etc. to us it was initially just miscommunicated. Great. At least an hour after delivery he was more “officially” weighed in the nursery when they also tested his blood for the first time, gave him his bath, etc. There he came out at 8 lbs. 14 oz.—just a few oz. different than the first quick and dirty measurement. When we asked our pediatrician to explain why they even go to all the trouble of weighing him “unofficially” in the delivery room when they know they’re just going to do it again an hour later and come up with something slightly different, all she could say was that the hospital apparently likes to have something to say to the excited parents as soon as possible after the delivery. Okay, that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Anyway, that really was the only frustration we encountered at the hospital. Everything else really was fantastic and at least we are finally convinced we’ve reached the bottom of it and know that his birth weight really was 8 lbs. 14 oz. after all.
For those of you with both the crazed interest :) and the stamina to read this whole post, you have probably figured out by now that Daddy was finally able to catch a much needed nap this afternoon. I’ve been writing this slowly throughout the day as I found the time and now that we just put Jackson down again its time for me to get some more sleep myself.

One proud father...

Here's lookin' at you kid...

Soooooo cozy...

Lovin' my stripes...

Just adorable...

Tuckered out with Daddy...

LOTS of long hair...

Jackson and Grammy...