Today was Rebekah's first appointment with her pediatrician. If we had had the presence of mind to think about it, we would have had our fingers crossed when they weighed her. Her weight was finally rising...6 lbs, 11 oz! The doctor pronounced her healthy. We really like the doctor. He's very gentle with Rebekah and quite friendly too. When he was finished looking her over, the nurse came in to give Rebekah the Hepatitis B shot. We watched in amazement as the needle was out of Rebekah's thigh almost before we'd seen it go in. Our eyes turned toward Rebekah's face, which had gone totally red. Her mouth was wide open, poised for what would certainly be a very wild and angry cry. "You can pick her up now," the nurse told me. I did immediately, just in time to start calming her cry before it really got started.

We also met with another lactation consultant, Barbara. She helped me correct the position I was holding Rebekah in at the breast, but that still didn't solve our problems. Rebekah was very hungry and quite angry that she couldn't get anything out of her Mommy. Using a syringe, Barbara finger-fed Rebekah some formula, and then we tried her at the breast again. She wasn't as frantic, but she wasn't very happy about the whole situation either.

After observing Rebekah's sucking action with her finger, Barbara asked if Rebekah had received any kind of rubber nipple or pacifier. "No," Joe said, "we wanted to avoid nipple confusion." "Well, this baby's got it," was Barbara's response. We had been about to give up on breastfeeding when we entered the pediatrician's office, though we certainly want Rebekah to receive my milk. Upon leaving Barbara's office, we had nearly decided to give Rebekah a bottle. Barbara outfitted us with an additional syringe (we now have 3) and a ton of handouts on breastfeeding.

By the time our Noon appointment was finished, it was after 2PM, and we still hadn't eaten. Joe had been planning to go back to work for an hour or 2 this afternoon but was unable to since he needed leave to take Holli & Andrew to the airport at 3. As a result, his first day back at work was more like a first "couple hours" back at work. Nevertheless, his coworkers showered us with some wonderful gifts - a "fully loaded" diaper bag, a gown, and an album for Rebekah. All the folks in Joe's department had also signed a card wishing him the best with his new responsibility as a Dad...complete with invitations to come in to work at 3AM if he wanted to, since he'd be up anyway!

This evening I gave in and offered Rebekah her first bottle...of breastmilk. It was so refreshing not to feel like I needed 5 hands to feed her and contain the mess. She's doing pretty well with the bottle though it's taking a long time to feed her even an ounce.
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