Irony Realized

We recently took Lenore for her 4 month shots, and check up. I made Chris come with me because I wanted him to see the size of the needles that these sadist doctors use on our tiny, little baby. Although I wasn't looking forward to the shots (probably less than she), I was eager to find out how much she weighed. People constantly ask us how much she weighs. The most common comment we get is "She is so little! How old is she? Really?! How much does she weigh?" People are so bazaar If they aren't complaining or eye-balling you for being too large, they are smirking at the tiny size of your baby. "You don't feed her enough! She must be starving." I would defensively respond that we weren't starving her, but merely attempting to get her on a schedule.

So...we marched our enormous baby into the doctors office thinking that she would easily weigh 11 pounds, but probably weighed closer to 12. I was totally shocked when the nurse said she weighed a mere 10 pounds 9 ounces. Impossible! Look at her gut! So she still fits into newborn clothes, big deal! It was then that I realized that perhaps I was starving my poor little baby. I started thinking about all the times she cries in the middle of the night, or during the day and I would let her cry until she fell asleep. Was she crying because she had hunger pangs? Is she always chewing on her hands because she is hungry and not teething? Among all these questions came the one thing that I knew for sure; the doctor would not be happy with me.

When Lenore was first born, she was a poor eater. Some babies have the innate ability to latch on and eat with vigor. Lenore did not. I went to a lactation specialist twice because she fell into the severely underweight category, and had to return to the doctor twice at her two month visit because she was underweight. She even told me to use formula because the boobs weren't doing it. I became a feeding Nazi. She needed to eat every 2 hours and for 20 minutes at a time. She would fall asleep after 5 minutes, so I began nearly beating my child. I would rub her back, head, feet, legs, undress her, and blow in her face to keep her awake. Result: she put on the required weight.

I was of course, correct about the doctors response. I am to return in 4 weeks to have her re-weighed. It's a good thing our baby is active, and developmentally on target because she might have referred us to child protective services right there and then. Crap! She might have just taken Lenore from us right then and handed her to some big-breasted German wet nurse since my dairy is apparently not doing the job.

I suppose my dream of sleeping through the night will have to wait until I can fatten her up. Doctors orders are to feed the kid every 3 hours and when ever she wakes up in the middle of the night. No worries. I'm sure she'll begin looking more like her parents soon enough, and then people will start telling us, "What are you feeding her? She's huge! Maybe you should cut back." If it weren't for her superman curl which her father also possess, and the pointy chin which is unmistakeably mine, I might doubt that she was ours.