Tongue Tied

A couple weeks ago my mom noticed that Fredrik never sticks his tongue out. I remembered reading in a breast feeding book that tongue tie can be a problem with nursing, but I knew it was rare so I didn't think twice about it for a couple days. I mentioned it to Peter who typed "tongue tied baby" into Google (the parents best friend). I have had a lot of trouble nursing since Fredrik was born, so that was why we decided to do some research. He had all of the symptoms, first of all I should say what tongue-tie is, the fraenulum (the membrane under the tongue that holds it the bottom of your mouth) is too tight. In Fredrik's case, it was connected all the way to the tip of his tongue. He could only stick it out to about even with his lower gum, but the middle of his tongue would not even reach that far, but remained puckered back, or heart-shaped. Other symptoms were that he could not cup his tongue around my finger or follow my finger from side to side when I rubbed his lower gum. He also dribble milk out the sides of his mouth when bottle-fed. It is hard to establish breast feeding with a tied tongue. My milk supply never increased much because my breasts were never emptied fully, only the "easy" milk came out, so since it's a supply and demand situation, I didn't get enough demand to supply. So, once we decided that this was a problem we quickly made an appt. with the pediatrician in Hutchinson. I should note our disgust that the doctor who delivered Fredrik didn't check his tongue, nor did the 2 lactation consultants we met. We were fully discouraged when the ped. refused to snip his fraenulum. Instead she told us that it would probably stretch over the first years of life and if he could take a bottle it was fine (not much of an advocate for nursing). They told us to meet with a speech pathologist (what?!) and if he/she recommended we get him snipped, we would then need to anesthetize him for the procedure. Today we went to Litchfield to my family doctor growing up, Dr. Deb Peterson. She snipped his tongue without a doubt that it was contributing to the nursing difficulties. The procedure lasted a couple seconds and he hardly cried. He was upset that we woke him from his nap, but the numbing agent did the job and he hardly bled-just a few drops. Now we have the task at hand of getting the nursing to work. He's been nursing/bottle feeding for the past 5 weeks, so he is pretty accustomed to the nipple on a bottle. I'm attending a La Leche League meeting tonight-they are the ones that told me to see Dr. Deb and I hope they can help us figure out how to transition to boob alone.

Easter! 1 month old! Smiles!

We took our first trip this weekend, all the way to IOWA! We packed the car full of diapers, clothes, and all of the other baby paraphernalia that we thought we would need for the weekend. We actually didn't bring enough, so we are glad that Peter's mom had a good washing machine. Jessa is also using cloth diapers, so we went through tens of thousands of diaper changes over the weekend, feeling the bucket endlessly. Fredrik prefers to poop into a diaper that has been wrapped around his bum in the past five minutes. And then there's the peeing on the changing table... Thinking back on the weekend on this Sunday night I can't help but think mostly of diapers and feeding. It is what takes up most of my brain right now.
It was really fun to see Peter's sister Anna from Boston and our two nephews Lachen and Aksel. Anna had a lot of good advice about babyhood (and motherhood...one in the same). She nearly took Fredrik with her back to Boston.
Jessa, Jonah, and the Hemberger Foreign Exchange brother Christopher (in the US of a visit) also were around this weekend. It was great. Christopher brought Fredrik some "foreign" clothing that is darling. We made our way back north on Saturday after a fun baby shower in Forest City. Today Fredrik and I went to Buffalo for Easter dinner. It was our first outing alone without the father figure who stayed home to work on seedlings. I think the outing went well thanks to a little mirror in the back window that allows me to see the baby while I drive and lots of family members to help out.

Here are the four Hemberger cousins, Lachen and Aksel are the big boys, Fredrik and Jonah are the babies. All the boys are wearing matching outfits from Gymboree.

Fredrik can sort of hold his head up!

Grandpa Jim and Freddy.

Jessa, Jonah, Christopher, and Fredrik

The official Easter picture.
Fredrik was all smiles for Great Grandma June

Pictured here are males in the family...for no particular reason but that there are suddenly more of them.

There were many pictures taken of Fredrik over the weekend.

Baby feet are cute.
Fredrik spent many hours with Auntie Anna!

Three Weeks Old

Fredrik was born 3 weeks ago already! I must say that the last 3 weeks went quite a bit quicker than the 3 weeks before he was born. We haven't really settled into a routine yet. It's mostly just feeding all day and night still at this point. There is no real distinction between day and night, or one day to the next. He's snoozing right now, so I really should be snoozing as well, but I had to post some new pictures. In the second picture Fred is studying some black and white designs that Aunt Jessa sent to us, he loves them and will stare at them wide-eyed for up to 1/2 hour at time while flailing his limbs about.

9 Days Old

Fredrik is starting to get chubby! We like to see his cheeks filling out and little rolls starting to form on his legs and arms. He eats A LOT. He enjoys sitting in this bouncy seat when we're in the kitchen preparing meals and cleaning up.

For a few minutes between sleeping and eating Peter showed Fredrik the guitar. He loved it, wiggling and wide eyed he listened to Peter play.

Fred had some gas bubbles in his belly and was not liking it. It calmed him down to get back in the womb for awhile. Wow, I can't believe he fit inside of me only a week ago.

Great Grandma June came over for a visit.