Charlie's First Few Weeks

Charlie and his parents came to Thanksgiving Dinner at our house to meet his extended family ... "Aunt" Leslie, "Uncle" Randy, Laurie, Brian, and Gloria. Forget the turkey ... Baby Charles was the star of the day! He also awed the audience at his Grandpa & Grandma Sump's house.

The next day, he had a rash that seemed to be spreading all over his tiny little body. Mommy and Grandma didn't know what else to do, so we took him to the ER (on the advise of the nurse on duty), since the doctor's office was closed for the holiday. After about eight hours in the ER, the ER doctor seemed to think that everything would be okay and told us to keep an eye on him and follow-up with a visit to the pediatrician's office. Thank God!

Rebecca wanted to try breast feeding ... Charlie had a little trouble with it. He wouldn't "latch on" and so he wasn't gaining weight. Rebecca was concerned that he wasn't getting enough nourishment so we called the lactation nurse at the hospital and they said to bring him right in. He had lost more than 10% of his birth weight, so they worked with Rebecca and gave her a nursing aide that would help Charlie to nurse. She had to bring him back because of the amount of weight he lost in the first week. On the next visit, he had gained an appropriate amount of weight and no further visits to the lactation nurse would be required.

Rebecca tried ... REALLY tried ... but decided that, in the best interest of Charlie's health, breast feeding would be phased out. Rebecca's big brown eyes looked into mine and she said, "I was bottle-fed and I turned out all right." That was one of the first indications that she was the mother, and she would make decisions about her son. She was not a child, or an irresponsible teenager ... she was a MOTHER. I told her that I had complete confidence in her and her abilities to be the parent.

My confidence was not misplaced; she is a GREAT mother!!!!!