A big blow to our confidence....

We left the hospital yesterday thinking we were good to go. We saw the lactation specialist and she had nothing but extremely positive things to say about how we were doing. However.. the first night home from the hospital proved to be tricky. We were all amped up for a good night. She was eating well all day, napping like a angel, and just being so sweet. That all went out the window at 2am...

She started screaming like an animal for three hours straight. Nothing Jon or I did would calm her down. After Lu and I were both in tears, we decided to call the hospital and speak to one of our nurses. I was sure they were going to say something like.. 'hmmm, maybe you should just bring her back here.. we didn't think you could handle her.' Instead, the reassured us that we were doing everything right and that babies sometimes just cry. After all of that screaming, she finally wore herself out and slept for two and half hours. At that point in time, she had not eaten since two am.. and it was nearing 8am. I was sure we were starving her, and her jaundice levels were rising and that she's going to have brain damage from all the crying. (side note.. she doesn't even have jaundice..I'm just crazy!)

We called the pediatrician this morning when they opened and they told us to supplement with formula and to bring her in if we are concerned. Of course we packed her up and brought her to the doctor! By the time we got there she had calmed down and was perfectly content.

Basically they checked her out, confirmed that she was fine, and then spent the rest of her visit trying to convince two very nervous new parents that their daughter was indeed going to survive a night of crying.

This parenting thing might be harder than I had originally thought...