On November 29th we took Owen in to see Dr. Biglow for his 2 week Dr. Appointment. Everyone loved him of course, all commenting on his amazing hair. It was neat because many of them remembered Jackson looking like that when he was a baby too. It is wild how similar the two boys looked as babies.
When we left the hospital Owen's weight dropped down to 7 lbs 6 oz, and today he weighed in at 8 lbs 2 oz! He gained almost a whole pound in a week. Good job, little guy! He is in the 50th percentile for weight, his head circumference is in the 75 percentile and his height is in the 50th as well. We will see if it all stays this way as he grows. Dr. Biglow said that everything looked perfect with him and gave us a clean bill of health. She even said that we can wait to come back until his 2 month mark unless is seems like he isn't gaining weight well or if we are just curious at how much he weighs.
We have been having some issues with nursing, he is eating well and definitely gaining weight. But he makes this hard clicking noise with his tongue while eating that has me concerned. It is painful to me, and seems to make it harder then it should be to nurse for him. I looked around online a bit and kept coming back to either that his latch isn't right (although to me it looks good) or maybe he is tongue tied. I asked Dr. Biglow about it so she double checked it for me. She thought it looked OK and said that I should call her if things don't improve. She thought that it was probably a latch issue. I wasn't so sure, but I let it go for now.
Well, we go home and I keep nursing Owen all the while reading in my books and looking online to try and figure out what we are doing wrong with our latch to make things so painful to me. And what is with this darn clicking?! By that night I was in tears from a combination of frustration and pain. I couldn't figure out the problem and finally decided to call a lactation consultant in the morning to see if they could help me out. Because at this point I am beginning to fear that I won't be able to keep it up if things don't improve. Well as it turns out there was a breastfeeding support group meeting that very night! I could go and get some actual one on one support and hopefully leave knowing what we need to do to fix things. I can't even put into words the relief I felt knowing I was going to be receiving some help so quickly.
That night Owen and I headed back to the hospital for our class. I felt like a kid going back to school with the nerves racing through me. (I am postpartum hormonal, remember!) But there was no need for the nerves because all of the ladies were so nice. And the head lactation consultant was actually the one who I met when I was in the hospital with Jackson and she also said hello to me after Owen's birth. It was great seeing a familiar face. She took me in the back so we could have some private one on one time and try and figure out what is going on. Well, it turns out our latch is actually great- no issues there. But she was concerned with the pain and damage I had received, and why I wasn't healing up yet. I told her about my suspicion of tongue tie and asked her if she could take a look. Right away she said that yes, he was indeed tongue tied! It wasn't a severe case, but bad enough that it would affect his nursing. It could also affect his eating of solids and even speech down the road. Deb gave me the name of a wonderful doctor and reccommended that we take Owen in to have a "frenetomy", a quick and simple procedure that clips the little piece of skin under the tongue that holds it to the bottom of your mouth. She said that infants don't have any nerve endings there until after one year of age, so it is actually quite painless as well. She advised me to stop nursing right away and to pump and feed him with bottles until he had his procedure, because I can't go on with the pain I am feeling. I was worried about "nipple confusion" with introducing a bottle so soon, but she said not to worry. He will do just fine.
As sad as I am about Owen needing to have a procedure done, I am soooooo relieved that we have found the answer to our problems. Deb told me that in most cases you notice a night and day difference in nursing immediately after it is done. We shall see!
The next morning I called Dr. Witt's office to schedule an appointment with her and was surprised they were able to get us in first thing on Friday! With the weekend coming up, I totally thought we wouldn't get to see her until the following week. Things were just working out. During these two days I had been bottle feeding Owen, which he took to with no problem. Jackson always had an issue with bottles (I nursed him a full year, and we didn't introduce a bottle to him until I had to go back to work at 12 weeks.) So I was expecting to have a problem with Owen too. But he didn't care one bit.
Friday morning Scott met me out at Dr. Witt's office, which is incredibly cool by the way. It has a tree house and huge slide right there in the middle of the waiting room- and when I say huge, I mean as big as on a playground! Jackson would love it! Anyways, they took us right away and the procedure was super fast. Dr. Witt took him across the hall and it took literally 15 seconds. She put gauze on it for a minute or so and then I was able to nurse him right away. Deb my consultant was right- breastfeeding him was like night and day! The doctor gave me some cream to help heal me up, they showed me a few new positions and we were on our way. Owen did so great! I an so happy that he is as good as new and this was something so simple to correct. Thank goodness I went with my gut instinct and got a second opinion, I would have hated to have prolonged this longer then necessary, especially with knowing how easy the whole thing was. For any of those people that trash talk Le Leche League Consultants, I have to say they were all nothing but amazing. Deb was a life saver, so patient and wonderful to work with. I am so glad I had someone to go to that could help me out right away. Thank you, thank you!
