who can believe it?? certainly not me or my family!
i have a feeling this will be a long one, so i’m using the intro.
by the way, the birth story is up!!

oh, before i forget, AUNT NATALIE, GRAMPA, GRAMMA AND AUNT SHARON, IF YOU’RE READING THIS, SIGN THE GUESTBOOK OR LEAVE A COMMENT! we all wanna know when you’re checking up on jeremiah. it will be saved forever.

jeremiah, you are such a joy to your papa and me! it’s so great to see you growing up, becoming a happy, loving little guy! you are growing so quickly though, it’s sad! i think parenthood is the reason the word bittersweet was created. it’s so hard and so nice at the same time!! you are getting sooo big and chubby - you love to eat both yummies (mama’s milk) and baba. you will accept both at almost all times. LOL.
you love kisses from us, and you think your papa is the funniest thing on the earth! when he comes home, and you hear his voice, you turn and try to find him. when you first hear mama’s voice, you start licking your lips, thinking it’s time for yummies! you are so much fun, and such a big joy to us sweet baby! you are truly the sonshine in our hearts. you light up our lives!
i wish we could capture these times forever, when you are so small, sweet and innocent. i know i will love you however big you are though, and that is how i can let you grow up.
we love you, jeremiah thomas!!!
love your mama and papa

jeremiah is changing so much. he’s still my little baby boy, but i can’t believe all the changes he has been going through.
he is smiling ALL the time now, not just every now and then, as before. he can hold his head up like a true pro now. he is gaining weight every day…he’s a true chubberoo!
his problems with gas seem to be gone - i don’t know if it was me drinking milk, or the carnation good start formula….i don’t know which one i wish it was….i miss drinking milk, but the carnation good start sends us a free can (by coupon) every month!! so hmmm. what to do. how should i attempt finding out, without hurting my lil man?
his eyelashes seem to be growing longer, his hands, arms and legs are getting SOOOO fat! his cheeks aren’t far behind. LOL.
we have decided, since i am still not producing much milk, that we are going to give him mainly formula, and then i will nurse him at least 3x a day on top of that. it has seemed to be working out nicely - and giving me more energy, and having a less cranky (since he’s not so hungry) little boy. he still loves nursing, so i plan to do it as long as he wants (not literally…i will not be breastfeeding my five year old son). and since it doesn’t really hurt, and since i don’t resent it anymore (because he was practically glued to my breast all day), i enjoy nursing as well! so besides the health benefits for him and me, i would miss it too much emotionally now. it’s just too important for us to give up.
i will be updating the stats today, after we weigh him. the photo album is updated as well - the second to last album and the very last album. this morning i did a ‘photo shoot’ with him. some of the pics turned out great, and some were a bit disappointing. but it was my first time, so i imagine i will get better at it, right?! he seemed to enjoy it and didn’t get mad at me at all. what a sweet boy!
ooh, i almost forgot, i was working on blessed mama the other day…i hope to have the new blog up over there soon. btw, its pronounced blessed, not bless-ed.
well i need to get into the shower now…hope everyone is doing well! i will be by when i can!! hugs!

i had forgotten to use my post intro option…so from now on, if the post appears to be going long, i’ll be using the intro! lol.
sweet sonshine has baby acne. wah! it’s so itchy looking…and i have the urge to pop the white ones! no, i haven’t and won’t, but it’s just some instict to want to! i hope they go away soon…
updates:
to the right, you’ll notice a new feature: the stats! i will be updating it every week, unless there is no change (the weight will be the only one to change every week, i imagine).
there are of course new photos up. don’t forget to check out the profession pics if you haven’t yet. if you can call wal-mart pics professional…lol.
my cousin, whose baby was due march 11, had her early - feb 23! welcome to the world, lil girl!
marybeth - as for jeremiah’s nicknames, i’ll have to start a whole page just for those! lol! he has too many!
well that’s it for now - lil man just started screaming…i can’t let him cry it out…i’m going to try doing that soon, but i still think he’s too little for that. if there’s something important i need to do, then i have to let him cry, but this is something i don’t have to do right this second. ya know?
hugs!

my precious baby is 5 weeks old today. how is it possible time is going by so fast?!
as i look into your eyes, watch you wrap your hand around my finger, or kiss your chubby cheek, i thank the Lord for the miracle of you. isn’t it a miracle God gave you to me? that out of all the mamas, He made you for me?! sometimes i can’t believe it, i have to catch my breath…the dream that i’d been dreaming is right here in my arms!
the fact that you’re a little miracle, made up of 1/2 your papa and 1/2 me, is incredible. i’m SO thankful for you, my sweet, precious sonshine!
when i see on the news or read on the net about babies who are still in the NICU, who are dying, who are in pain, who have gone to heaven early, i am even more aware of how much you mean to me. all the little troubles and annoyances papa and i have been going through seem like nothing in comparison.
i love you, sweet boy!!! no mama could love you more!!!
thank You, Lord for this precious little boy. thank You for his health and his sweet nature! i pray he will grow in Your love and that he will come to know Your Son as his Saviour. thank You soooo much for blessing us with him, and please teach us the best way to raise him.
in Jesus’ name, Amen.
today we had his first professional pics taken! he is sooo adorable! you can check them out under professional pics on the pics section.
we also received new birth pics, from my doula, but i’m still editing them, so they won’t be up for a while. i’m trying to be decent with my breasts, because they show up quite a bit in them! lol!
also coming soon are video clips! yay!!!
yesterday baby boy measured 9lbs 14oz!!! woohooo!!! his eyes are turning from the gray-blue to a more blue-blue. hehe. his hair is still light blonde. he is so adorable and precious!!! he is holding his head up better and better (he’s been trying since the day we brought him home from the hospital!) and his eyes are focusing much better. he smiles at us all the time now, instead of just every now and then, and he laughs a lot too!
jerry and i have decided he does NOT have colic. he just has very painful gas at times. we’re hoping that the switch from one formula to another will help - so far it seems to be making a difference! i’m really praying he doesn’t go through that pain again. poor baby.
well that’s it for now!
God bless - big hugs!

sweet boy felt a bit better today. he was PERFECT all day until 1:40, then the tears and the pain started. my poor baby! it breaks my heart when he cries so.
by popular demand, i forced jerry to take a few pics of baby and me! i look horrible, but YOU asked for it! lol!
thanks everyone for the great info and advice…we are trying a little bit of everything, and will continue to do so, and just hang in there. it’s something he will grow out of…that’s the only thing that keeps us going! lol! no, really, we are praying for him every night…for his tummy, for his heart, that he’ll come to know the Lord one day, and also for our patience and strength!
hugs to all!

i can’t believe my baby is one month old today!!
dear sonshine,
so much has happened in this month since your birth. most of it hasn’t been easy. but through it all, you have grown and changed so much! your papa and i can’t believe how it’s possible to love you more and more every day, even in your most cranky moments! you weigh 9lbs 10oz now, and are 21 1/2 inches long. you can hold your head up really well when you’re wide awake, and look like you want to crawl soon! your gramma comes to visit you all the time, and your grampa has founds lots of reasons to come by to visit you. your great-grampa is very proud of you too, and is looking forward to feeling better so he can hold you again.
you are a little miracle, and we will always love you.
i’m hoping to get some professional pictures taken of you this weekend! hope hope hope!!
we love you, jeremiah!!

as for me, i am looking about the same or thinner than before pregnancy. i started my period last week. it has been light, but it’s been there. what a pain!! breastfeeding is going fine - it doesn’t hurt much anymore, and i’m actually enjoying it for the most part.
the only thing is, he’s ALWAYS hungry, and he’s been cranky and screaming in pain AGAIN almost all the time. he acts like he’s starving nearly all of his waking hours. is this possible?? or is there something else we’re missing?? i am now GLAD we’re using a bottle too, because i could not handle always holding him to feed him. i would never be able to go to the bathroom or anything because he is literally hungry THAT MUCH.
tell me about colic. i really thought it started in older babies. what can be done to help/prevent it? we are really miserable, as he is, and don’t know quite how to handle this baby as is.
i feel very guilty because i have wanted this baby for so long, and now that i have him i wonder if i was really ready to be a parent…it’s sooo hard. i love him soooo much, but MY GOODNESS. is it this hard for everyone, or are we just really big wimps?!?!
i know this is a horrible post for his one month birthday…but honesty is important…

a lil quiz (will be moved to MY blog when it’s up!)

wow, my baby is four weeks old today. i can’t believe that he’ll be a month old on tuesday…time REALLY does fly!!!!
i have something i need to get off my chest…a disclaimer for my blogs, if you will…
i have always wanted to be completely honest in my online writing. there are two reasons that my freedom of expression has been hindered since jeremiah’s birth. first of all, this is a journal for jeremiah. i would hate for him to read something i wrote and think it means his mama didn’t love him, because that is SOOOOO not the case. i have often glazed over things that could make him think he was a burden, or not what we wanted. he is a huge responsibility, as we knew he would be, and we love him more than we realized we could. this part of the disclaimer is for jeremiah: i love you, little boy, and nothing i could ever write will change that!!!!
secondly, i fear the comments i might receive; that i’m a bad mother that wah-wah this is what i wanted all along and now i can’t hack it, etc. let me prevent any comments like this by stating that i WILL be password protecting this site, as well as my personal site, if i need to. i never wanted to, but emotionally it’s not worth it to me to put up with rudeness from people who don’t know me but THINK they know everything about me. (to clarify, there have been no such comments lately, but i have received them in the past, and will not accept them anymore!)
that being said, you know how when you were pregnant and everyone always said “you’ll never know until you’re a parent”? and you shrugged it off, just like you thought they were exaggerating when they said “you think you love him now, just WAIT until you hold him in your arms.” (as if you could love this baby MORE than you do now!!) parenting would be hard, we knew, but we are good with kids. we were on top of everything, we thought. we’ll be fine.
yeah, right. it is NOTHING like i thought it would be. the intense love, the emotional highs and lows, coupled with total lack of sleep, are unbelievable. you think you can handle hearing your child cry, since you’ve handled other kids cry for years…not at all the same when your own baby’s tears break your heart, because there’s nothing you can do.
the past few days, i’ve been debating changing mi-mi’s site title from jeremiah sonshine to jeremiah grumpy-pants.
my sweet, quiet-tempered angel (except when he’s hungry!!) had been screaming and crying at any time of day for no obvious reason, for two days. he sounded like he was in pain, but who knows. jerry and i have been at a loss as to how to console or pacify him. sometimes the breast would work, other times he would refuse that, turning his head screaming. he was also having horrible gas (toots!!). we were so afraid he was turning colicky. or maybe, could it be? that he was spoiled already, so we’ve already ruined him??
the feelings of inadequacy, guilt, frustration (and again, sleeplessness) went hand in had. we knew this baby wasn’t being bad, but couldn’t help but feel he was a meanie! we’d both cry because there was nothing we could do! anything that appeased him only worked for a few minutes tops.
thank the Lord he’s doing better now! my mom and sister were here yesterday to give us a break, and he had grumpy problems with them until about 8pm, then had a nice, big, gross poopy and seemed to be fine. he fell asleep at about 9pm and slept until i woke him at 11:30 to feed him.
i don’t know if it’s from drinking milk that caused it, but i’m cutting it out, just in case. my poor little boy was so miserable, and so were we!!!!
ok, venting over.
we can’t believe how big he’s getting now! i held his foot to his newborn print and his foot was a whole big toe longer!! wow!!! and he is now 21 1/2 inches long! that’s an inch and a half longer!! (he was born at 21 inches, but when his cone-head went down, he lost an inch LOL.) not sure about his weight at the moment, but we’ll get an updated weigh-in soon! he is so precious, adorable and just plain CUTE! he has the sweetest little smile and loves kisses!!
as for me, breastfeeding is going well. it barely hurts at all now, and it’s more fun because he LOOKS at me! i am getting more sleep and trying to take it easy, which is why i have been neglecting online stuff lately…hope everyone will forgive me not visiting them much!! i still love you all!!
i am thinking of changing jenn’s journey to another name. i want to use the name blessed mama for my name…should the site title be just ‘blessed mama’ OR ‘blessed mama’s babbles’ OR ‘blessed mama’s musings’ OR ‘blessed mama’s something else?’ LOL.
anyway, that’s it for now (think that was enough?? LOL).
hugs!

at the dr’s weight check yesterday, jeremiah weighed 8lbs 14oz!!! yay!!! he’s nearly 9lbs!! how exciting is that?!?!?
things are going well. he is still a little piggy, loving my breast as well as his formula. he is still adorable, and is getting longer and chubbier every day!!
i am going to try to work on a new layout when time permits - i have a great idea for his new layout. i’m going to attempt to go away from inline frames for once! can you believe it?!
i am debating on whether i will ever have the strength and energy to open my jenn’s journey journal. i know that i need to reopen it, since this journal should just be about the sonshine boy, and in the future when i have other kids, i can’t post everything here…but i don’t want this blog to ever be neglected! make sense?
my cousin had her baby - and it’s a boy! we didn’t know who she was having. now she has a lil girl and a lil boy!
anyways, that’s it for now!!
thanks again for all the prayers and love…i love you all!! here are big hugs and kisses from jeremiah : :lovey:

It is hard to believe that it is already Jeremiah’s three week birthday. When Jenn told me that it was three weeks, I argued that she was wrong. It just doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. Well, anyway, Jeremiah looks chubbier and weighs 8lbs 9oz as of yesturday (not the doctor’s scale). He just seems healthier. We are so thankful. He still sleeping during feedings but he’s sucking when he does. If we just keep doing what we are doing, I know everything will be alright. Thanks for all the advice. Maybe we can write a book someday.:) Well, that’s all for now. Jenn insisted I needed to post since she was busy.:)

i just wanted to say thank you to everyone for all the advice, support, and prayers. please CONTINUE to pray for us, as the battle is never over!
here is what we are doing now: we are still supplementing formula, and they are not using nipples to do so. they are squirting it in his mouth with either a syrenge or a med dropper.
i am eating oatmeal every morning, taking three fenugreek caps three times a day, getting a lot more to eat (i realized i wasn’t eating enough at all…i was so tired i would sleep through my hunger instead of getting up to eat), drinking even more than before, including mother’s milk tea, getting sleep every time he sleeps. it was amazing the difference i noticed in my breasts since doing this. i know now that my milk supply WAS low, but it is increasing now. my breasts felt heavy the next morning after taking fenugreek for the first time. it’s amazing stuff! i can even tell the difference when jeremiah eats now - he isn’t sucking as hard and i know he is getting more! it’s amazing.
i am very thankful my mom and dad said something and even noticed a difference in jeremiah’s weight, because i hadn’t noticed. but from something i looked up later about the gold dust in his diaper, he was definitely heading toward dehydration again.
he is now doing great - he has regained that half a pound, and he is also taller! yay! he has been more alert, sleeping less, meaning he’s gaining his energy now.
i know now that no matter what his health is the most important, and my health is closely tied to his. i love this little boy so much! :lovey: he is soooo precious. breastmilk is always important to him, and no matter what i will never give up on breastfeeding, but i am not afraid of giving him formula as well now.
thanks again, friends!!! hugs!!

**this was also sent in an email***
jeremiah and i really need prayer right now.
as some of you know, we have been having problems off and on with jeremiah’s weight. friday the 23rd the dr sent us to the hospital because he’d lost 1 lb since birth, his electrolytes were down, his biliruben level was up (23) and he was dehydrated. i was devestated that all of this was happening to my sweet boy, and couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible (i thought my milk was bad or something). we were told to supplement formula and continue breastfeeding. we were also told by a nurse in the hospital we would probably be there a few days.
jeremiah had blood drawn, was put on an iv, placed in a warmer, all in that night. he was a very brave, strong little boy. he slept well through the night in the warmer, and by sat. afternoon, he had gained 8oz, was no longer dehydrated and his biliruben and electrolyte levels were normal. we were told we could go home that day! we were also told to stop giving him supplements; he’d been spitting them right back up so they assumed he was getting enough milk from me and the supplements were too much. i was thrilled at all this great news!
we came home exhausted. my mom and jerry were wonderful, and let me sleep. they gave jeremiah a bottle of formula when it would have been time for me to nurse so i could rest. we gave him supplemental formula feeds that weekend. we would have just given him expressed breastmilk, but i couldn’t get anything pumping. on monday the 26th, at his weight check, he was 7lbs 11oz - up 10 lbs since the friday before! the dr was thrilled. she told us to continue as we were (we were still giving formula supplements &/or replacements at this time).
this past friday jeremiah showed beginning signs of a cold - congestion, sneezing, coughing, more tired. no fever, thankfully. we held off until monday to call the dr, and then it was only to make sure it wasn’t anything more than a cold. the dr confirmed it was a cold, gave us a few things we could do, then we had his weight checked. he was 8lbs, which means he’d gained 5 oz in a week. (most places say anything more than 4 oz a week is good). the dr was not happy, however, and told us to add an extra formula supplemen per day. i was crushed all over again, because i’d just decided that morning, after reading my breastfeeding book, to discontinue formula supplements altogether, as that can ruin your breastfeeding.
when we came home, and after jerry had read some of the breastfeeding book, we discussed it and decided not to listen to the dr, and to find a new dr. we wanted to just trust my body to do its job in giving our baby the best nutrition.
since then, jeremiah became even more of an on-demand feeder, eating almost every hour, and every time he acted like he was starving. we thought maybe he was just going through a growing spurt, feeling more hungry than before.
then last night my parents came over and thought he looked like he’d lost weight. it was a very upsetting ordeal, and in the end, a scale was bought, and he was given formula. according to the scale, he’d lost 8 oz. how is thiss possible, when i feed him all the time?? i accepted the possibility that i may be one of those women who have low milk supplies. it’s beyond me, considering how big my breasts are, but i know size isn’t what matters. i am now trying to eat even more, drink even more, have begun taking that fenugreek, and drinking ‘mother’s milk tea’. i will continue to feed jeremiah, as well as attempt to pump and express (it seems squeezing my nipple gets more milk out than pumping does, but it’s still not much!) but i am accepting the formula supplements and replacements for now. my mom discovered a possible link between low milk supply and polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is the very thing that caused my infertility in the first place.
i feel guilty because not only is my body not doing what it’s supposed to, i just don’t enjoy breastfeeding at all. i thought it would be an enjoyable bonding experience. instead, it hurts, it’s draining, and it’s not usually even bonding us, since i’m so tired, and he always falls asleep while eating.
i love him SOOOOOOOOOOOO much and want only the best for him. i know it may be that i have to give up my long-time plan of breastfeeding, if that is what is best for him, and for me both. i just wanted him to have breastmilk in him soooo strongly, it will be hard for me to accept if it comes to that!!
please pray that he will gain weight again, be strong and healthy, and that i will have more milk come in, and be able to enjoy breastfeeding like i feel i should. also pray that i can regain my strength and energy. i am still really drained from the delivery and don’t feel i’ve fully recovered yet.
add jerry to your prayers as well. he is the best husband and father ever. not only is he back at work (has been for a week) but all the work at home is falling on him…cooking, cleaning, etc. i really don’t want him to get burnt out!! we are overly thankful when my mom can come over to help out, like today, but she has her own job and home that she can’t neglect for too long at a time.
thank you all once again for your prayers and support.
God bless!
Jenn, Jerry & Jeremiah Gigowski