Help new mothers this holiday season!

As many of you know, my family had a very stressful time with my pregnancy and birth of Jonathan. But thank God, I had access to great medical care and we are all doing very well now.

Since we went though that ordeal, causes supporting mothers and babies are very near to our hearts. In the poorest areas of the world, there are innocent babies being born to mothers who are too poor to provide the care that they need. These mothers don't receive prenatal care, and the babies go without vaccinations and check-ups once they are born. These babies never asked to be brought into this world, and some of these mothers never planned on becoming pregnant.

You can make a difference in these people's lives.

For $40, you can partner with Compassion International to provide a health kit to a new mother in need.

We give gifts to so many people during this time of year, and many of those gifts are things we don't even need. Please consider giving to someone who is truly in need, and whose life will be made better because of you.

You can mail a check for any amount to Marissa Skipper, General Delivery, Eagle Lake, FL 33839. Please make the check out to Marissa Skipper for Health Kits. Or, you can go here to provide a kit directly.

Thank you, and God bless you!

The Frustration!

Everything I've read talks about how having a preemie can be more difficult than a full-term baby because they are behind the learning curve (so to speak) in that their systems are more immature than a full-term baby.  I haven't really had a hard time with Jonathan with much of anything - he is sleeping almost through the night, he stares at people and books, he smiles, he does everything a baby of 6 weeks should do.  Except eat well.

Feeding him is quite possibly the most frustrating thing I've ever done.  The only thing more frustrating that I can think of is learning to hit a golf ball.  And similar to hitting said golf ball, sometimes I hit it down the fairway with baby J, and other times I shank it, or the swing misses the ball entirely.

For example, today he napped for about 3 hours and woke up crying loudly.  I knew he must be hungry because he hadn't eaten a whole lot so far, so I made him a bottle and started feeding.  He usually eats about 3 oz every time he eats, but sometimes (like today) he eats 1 oz and goes to sleep.  This is where the frustration comes in.

Sometimes he will keep sucking even though he's asleep.  But then he starts coughing because the coordination kinda goes south when he gets in that state.  Other times (again, like today) I try to re-alert him.  I start by burping him.  If that doesn't work, I take his socks off and tickle him.  Still no luck.  So I took his pants off and unbuttoned his onesie and started fanning him with a rag.  No luck again.  My last resort was getting a wet cloth and rubbing his head, face and torso while trying to loudly coax him awake.  When he finally did wake up, I put the bottle to his lips and he pursed them so tight there was no hope of getting anything in there.  So I put him in his bassinet and waited for him to wake up.  That was almost 30 minutes ago.  If he sleeps longer than an hour the whole remaining 2 oz is wasted because I mixed a little formula in there to get some extra calories and it isn't supposed to be out longer than 1 hour.  Breast milk is a precious commodity!

I guess this all wouldn't be such a big deal if he was gaining a lot of weight.  But at his last pediatrician visit, the Dr. was a little concerned because he hadn't gained but 1 pound in the last 4 weeks.  We will go back to weigh him in 2 weeks.  In the meantime, he'll eat when he'll eat, I guess.