12 Ounces

My baby gained TWELVE ounces. Praise God!

After the two weeks of no weight gain, the week of crazy schedule of constant feeding, the sloppy eating sessions, the week of learning to space the feedings out a little and let her get a bit hungry, learning her cues and anticipating her hunger, the tears, the stress, the prayers...my baby finally gained a GOOD amount of weight. Like more than average. More than anticipated. So much that I knew God was going out of His way to tell me that I persevered and it had paid off. In fact, after the nurse left, I put her back on the scale to look again. He is THAT good :-)

I have to say, while I am SO thankful, I am also very proud of myself and of Lorelei. We learned to nurse. We worked really hard for six weeks and we still will have struggles, but we learned without supplementing with anything. People told me to just give her a bottle. They told me that I had worked through so much and if I wanted to give up, they would understand. In fact, I told myself that if she did not gain well this week, I would go to supplementing. But God is kind and rewarded our hard work. My baby is exclusively breastfed and I love it. And for the first time in weeks, I am allowed to let her sleep longer at night, thus letting ME sleep at night!

Some other tricks she has learned this week include blowing spit bubbles (or milk bubbles if she is eating,) pulling my hair, my shirt, my chest and holding on for dear life, and smiling. She smiles. At me. And I love it (though it is hard to capture on film.)

Oh, how I adore her.