The first two weeks of Lilli's life were so exhilarating, and at the same time so utterly exhausting. She was having a really hard time breastfeeding at first, and so we had to go get an industrial grade breast pump and feed her by bottle. No one has really suffered ultimate humiliation until you have been hooked up to a double electric breast pump and sucked dry. You just have to sit there helpless holding those suction cups to your boobies, at the mercy of anyone who wants to come in and laugh at you. Bob had a good laugh, let me tell you. But what we had to do was, we had to try and let her breastfeed, which was so frustrating at first, and then give up and pump. And while I was pumping, Bob would try to feed her. If he didn't get much down her, then I would try while he washed up all the pump parts. And so on repeated every two and a half hours or so. Its really enough to turn anyone pretty psychotic when you combine that with complete sleep deprivation. I look back at pictures of me from this time and I kind of look like a zombie. A happy zombie, though.

Plus, the first week she was really jaundiced, as you can see from her Thanksgiving picture. Appropriately, she was yellow as a pumpkin! This was not only worrisome, but it made her really sleepy. Everytime we wanted her to eat, breast or bottle, she's tend to fall asleep. In fact, she was typical in that when we wanted her to eat she'd sleep and when we wanted her to sleep, she wouldn't! I basically had to get used to sleeping with her in the crook of my arm.

But anyway, all that work payed off, because after several trips to the lactation consultant she eventually figured out the eating thing. After a week and half we didn't use the pump at all anymore. And eventually she got better at sleeping at night too, and not being so sleepy during the day, especially after the jaundice wore off. It's weird to think that I used to look at her and worry that she was so skinny! Maybe I was a little neurotic about being afraid of her starving and so I made sure she ate whenever she wanted. Anywho, you can see that she had no problem putting on weight. But really, this period was a test of our sanity!