I am dressed in real clothing after a hot shower. This is the first time since Tuesday that I've been out of a hospital gown or nightgown/robe. It feels weird, like now that I have clothing on I'm not allowed to be a patient anymore. Unfortunately, I have the same slacker nurse today that I had yesterday, so I will probably have to go ask for my medication again. I have only seen her once this morning. I wish I still had Kerry, but she has probably moved on to the newly post-partum moms who really need intensive care. They must leave the slacker nurses to people like me who are past that initial bleeding/immobilized/out-of-it stage and can walk around.

I'm still waiting to hear the official word on Adrian's tests from this morning. I know he passed the PKU test and the hearing test. Unless something else goes wrong, he should be able to come home today, but I'm not counting my chickens until they've hatched.

I was in the nursery at 9:00pm, midnight, 3:00am, 6:00am and 8:15am with Adrian. He wakes up HUNGRY now and latches right on, which is fantastic. That phase where he was just sleeping all the time and never wanted to wake up and eat was really hard, especially when I knew he really *needed* to wake up and eat. Now he's like a little tiger, he wakes up and roars for his food. Hooray!

He is so, so adorable. This morning he nursed like crazy for about half an hour, popped off, gave a big sigh, snuggled up to me and passed out. I couldn't stop kissing his fluffy little head while he slept on me. That sweet little baby head smell is absolutely irresistible.

The baby in the NICU next to Adrian has the same sorts of things going on. Rapid respiratory rate, possible infection, transition issues, etc. He is enormous though, 8 pounds 12 ounces. I guess weight and size are not a factor.

I heard that baby's dad saying that his wife hadn't breastfed their first two kids, but she really wanted to try to do it with this baby. When I was in there last though, she was in there too...feeding him a bottle of formula. Sad. I wonder what happened? Overwhelmed, I guess. I was wondering if I should clue in Ethel, who was her baby's nurse (and Adrian's too), so that she could give her some extra help if she wanted it. But then I felt like I was prying. I would have had to explain that I overheard the dad, etc.

Anywa, it's just sad. When you're all freaked out and don't know your baby yet and there are problems, breastfeeding seems like one more huge hump to get over that you don't need. But once it kicks in, it's so wonderful and so easy. I can't imagine not doing it. But that's just me, and I haven't had any problems with it, so it does seem like the obvious thing to do. I have to admit though, when Adrian wasn't waking up and wasn't wanting to breastfeed, and we were having to shake him up to wake him up, carefully latch him on, etc...it was a bit overwhelming. At that point a bottle would have been waaaaay easier and less intimidating. And after all, anyone can do bottle-feeding. So I kind of understand a little better now where bottle-feeders are coming from, especially if you have no one to help you with breast-feeding and one or more people encouraging you to just give up and give the baby a bottle.

But then what would I do with these boobs? I've got an industrial milk-producing complex here, and a baby who is more than eager to latch on, and latch on just right. So yeah, breastfeeding really works for me. I'm one of the lucky ones.