Dominick was welcomed into the world at 12:50pm on September 10, 2004, by me(Carol), Daddy(Scott), and his two brothers and sister, Anthony, Frankie, and Carly. The pregnancy was a long one and one filled with ups and downs. Dominick is my fourth baby and my sixth pregnancy, so I had some muscle weakness and had to wear a maternity belt to help support my uterus. I felt like he was sitting down low right from the start. At about 26 weeks when I woke up on the morning of my 40th birthday in tremendous pain. I went to the hospital thinking the worst, only to find out he was fine, but I had a gallstone lodged in my bile duct. Like turning 40 wasn't bad enough! They hospitalized me and gave me pain meds until I was lucky enough to have the stone move back off the duct. Because I was past the safe time period for sugery I had to wait until after delivery to have the gallbladder removed. This meant a strict no fat diet, and many days spent sick and in pain. I lost wieght every week I went to my OB, it would kill me to get on the scale. I was so afraid for Dominick. I ended up wieghing 3 lbs less at delivery then when I found out I was pregnant. The day finally came when they could safely induce labor. I went in at 7:30am and they started my pitocin at 8:00am, Dominick came into the world at 12:50pm after a normal labor and delivery. There he was our little boy! He was perfect, but very small and skinny for what I was used to, he weighed 6lbs 6oz and was only 18 1/2 inches long. I guess my weightloss did affect him. We noticed his headshape at birth, but no one seemed concerned including my husband and I. Babies heads usually round out after a week or so.
Although tiny Dominick was a strong baby, he would raise his head off my shoulder to see and when I sat him on my lap to burp him he would try to hold his head up. This didn't surprise me because my other three kids all had excellent head control early on. Dominick was so small, he only took an ounce of formula at each feeding and that would take almost an hour to get down him. He leaked formula everywhere out the sides of his mouth, and would cry and scream during feedings. The hospital let us go home on day two(Saturday) with the understanding that I would bring him back if there was a problem and I brought him to the pediatrician on Monday. I figured he was little and some babies take a while to get good at eating. We went to the pediatrician on Monday and he had lost 6 ozs, I was upset, but not too worried, all babies lose a little at the start. We decided to check him again Wednesday and if he lost more wieght he would have to go back to the hospital . I worked on him eating the next few days and he was starting to take about 2 ozs by Wednesday morning so I was hopeful. At the doctors he had not lost any wieght, but had not gained any either, so we would go back Friday. By then I had him eating 2 1/2 ozs and he had gained about 4 ozs back so I was happy and confident that I could keep up with this, even if it killed me. Dominick was happy and healthy other than the eating problems, so I wasn't worried. He would want to eat almost constantly, but by the end of the first month he was taking 3 ozs and gaining wieght. He still cried and fussed at every feeding and leaked formula out of the corners of his mouth, but at least he was eating. I had never had a baby that would get so upset during feedings. He would cry because he was hungry, but cry when the bottle was in his mouth and do anything to push it back out. It felt like all I did was feed this poor baby. It would take so long to get the bottle down and I'd put him for a nap and he'd be up in an hour and half to eat again. The type of formula didn't seem to matter, the only thing we found was that he couldn't handle the amount of iron in the regular formula, so we switched to low iron. This went on for the next two months. He was a good natured baby and slept well when he wasn't hungry,lol. He was my first to ever sleep on his back and the first to never move from his sleeping position. I just thought he was a very sound sleeper. At this point I had not paid much attention to his head shape, but I was noticing his neck seemed to be a little more floppy.
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