Holy cow

Wow this is difficult. I'm completely exhausted from trying to respond to Nathaniel's crying. He's on something of a three-hour feeding cycle that we're trying to continue. The nurses fed him at 8,11,2, then handed him over to us. We fed him at 5 and 8 ... now it's almost 11 p.m. I'm also scheduled for the 2 a.m. feeding, while Amanda will try to handle the 5 a.m. shift.

We're feeling incredibly inadequate (we fed him 55cc and 60cc, while a nurse helped with the initial feeding and got him to take 75cc; before surgery, he was handling 90cc all the time). Also, there's so many nurses, doctors, etc. who want to prod him and make sure he's OK (and, really, we are grateful), that they can't help but stop in while he's asleep between feedings and wake him up. He was doing fine, for example, at 9:40 p.m. when someone had to check a few things and woke him up. It's now 10:50, and I don't think he went back to sleep at all.

It's more confusing because everyone has different ideas. One nurse said he slept so much better with his hands out that she didn't want to keep them tight to his sides with the blacket (that's "swaddling" for nonparents out there). Another nurse told us that swaddling is a must because it's been shown to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Then there's the diapers. He's been in the room for seven hours or so ... and we've been through at least seven diapers. Two of those changes were done by the staff when they were checking him for other reasons. Still, he had five full diapers. We're talking no choice but to change him. We're already worried enough about every little peep and sigh; doing this as first-time parents with experts on hand to look over our shoulders is adding to the pressure.

Still, this is much better than we ever could have hoped for at this point.