Chronicles of Connor J.: Month 2

So month 2 was interesting because I was just wrapping up my vacation/paternity leave and soon I'd have to go back to work and Barbara was essentially on her own. Lucky for us, her mom would come over 3-4 days a week to just help out and give her a break.

It was still a trying time because Connor was still waking up every 2-3 hours for a feeding and Barbara would handle a lot of it mainly because 1. She was the milk supply 2. She knew I had to work and wanted me to get some sleep. It was tough on her because it was hard to imagine doing anything on her own or having "free time" without the kid because of how much he depended on her. The tough part of me was trying to keep Barbara's spirits up which wasn't as hard as the first month, but I could sympathize that motherhood wasn't very fun. The other tough part was Connor just couldn't sleep on his own because of his acid reflux and always had to be held up. So between Barbara and I, we'd have to sleep sitting up and holding him. This meant surrounding myself with pillows and blankets and waking up with a sore back all the time. Having a comfortable night of sleep was not in the cards for while. The other item weighing on our mind was that Connor just wasn't gaining much weight, so it was always a constant worry of "is he getting enough to eat?" and for Barbara she would constantly feel guilty that her body wasn't producing enough milk. The idea of giving formula to the little one always represented failure to her as a mother (which it wasn't), but she understood the idea that we had to fatten Connor up.

I think the thing that kept our spirits up is that around the 6 week mark, Connor started giving us some smiles. It's just an amazing feeling to know that our presence could make him smile and it almost felt like he really started to know who we were and was showing us some love.