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Abigail's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 10/13/02 -------------------- 4/17/02 3/15/02 2/4/02 1/15/02 9/14/01 8/16/01 7/26/01 7/20/01 7/7/01 4/17/01 4/17/01 12/5/00 10/25/00 10/14/00 7/12/00 6/21/00 6/7/00 5/31/00 5/23/00 5/17/00 5/9/00 5/3/00 4/25/00 4/19/00 4/12/00 4/4/00 3/28/00 3/22/00 3/15/00 3/7/00 2/29/00 2/28/00 2/23/00 2/15/00 2/9/00 2/4/00 2/2/00 1/26/00 1/25/00 1/18/00 1/11/00 1/4/00 12/28/99 12/21/99 12/14/99 11/1/99 10/28/99 10/21/99 10/5/99 9/29/99 9/1/99 8/1/99 7/1/99 6/1/99 5/1/99 4/1/99 -------------------- Abigail's Introduction

October 25, 2000

Liberty has been sick this week. She started out with a runny nose and that always turns into a cough for her. The doctors tell me that her throat is still really sensitive to any kind of irritation -- including extra mucous -- so she has never had a runny nose without it turning into a cough. And her cough sounds *horrible* no matter how minor it is. That's also thanks to the irritation. I'm told that will probably last until she's 4 or 5 years old. After the coughing starts, then she'll have a low grade fever on and off for a couple of days. She's pretty much all better now, but she was in rough shape a few days ago. All she wanted to do was nurse and moan, which meant all that Lena wanted to do was nurse, too. She didn't particulary feel the need to moan, though. Lena did have a runny nose the week before, but that's all it was for her. That's usually how it goes. I don't know if it's really because of Liberty's sensitive throat or because of the fact that she didn't receive any colostrum whatsoever when she was in the NICU so she's not able to fight it off easily. She wasn't even able to nurse until she was more than 2 weeks old. By that time, my milk had changed so much.

Any time Liberty gets sick I'm so thankful that she's still nursing because she never wants to eat anything, but she'll nurse all day and all night. I don't have to worry about whether or not she's dehydrating or losing weight. That is such a comfort for me.

I've been thinking about my husband a lot this week and about how important husbands are in the sometimes tough beginnings of breastfeeding. Since Lena and Liberty were born, I've seen several friends have babies and attempt to breastfeed. Some have been successful and a couple have not been able to get through the first rough weeks. All of the mothers were equally committed, but the difference was, I think, the support of the father. The ones who reluctantly, and with many tears, had to wean their babies had a lot of problems getting support from their husbands in any form. Whether they needed to talk about it without their husband saying, "If it's so hard why don't you just quit?" or if they needed them to help out with housework, taking care of other children, cooking meals, grocery shopping, etc. I just can't imagine what I would've done if Bryan hadn't taken such good care of me and Lena and Liberty in our early weeks together. He never had to be asked to do anything, either! He just did what needed to be done. Also, through the roughest spots, Bryan never even hinted that I should think about quitting. He was full of pep talks and loving words to keep me going. I will be forever grateful to him for that.

I've heard a lot of mothers say they chose to bottle feed so the father would be able to feed the baby, thus bonding with the baby better. I have to admit that those kind of statements intimidated me somewhat and made me feel like my babies wouldn't bond with their father. But Bryan did so many other things to bond like giving baths and talking and changing diapers and rocking and cuddling and patting and singing and playing and making faces and the list goes on and on. And I never could've imagined that the three of them would've become so close as early as the first weeks. Seeing Bryan in that Daddy mode from the beginning and to this day has made my love for him deeper and stronger.

Now that Lena and Liberty are 18 months old, it's so fun to see the special bond and the love that they have for their daddy. I think Lena and Liberty know how hard he worked so they could have the best start in life. He knew how important it was for Lena and Liberty to be breastfed and he knew how important it was for my state of mind to be able to breastfeed them, so he went above and beyond the call of duty to make that possible for us. And he continues to go above and beyond for us every day. I don't know any little girls who are so lucky. I couldn't have asked for more.