Clemcast 🐣

(This is an announcement only group for occasional updates on Clement. Feel free to share any photos to trusted family and friends but please no sharing on social media. Thank you!)

Clement spent his first night with Alexandra in the post-delivery ward. The staff were super attentive and kind. Alexandra's first diaper change did draw some chuckles from the nurse when she put it on backwards, but recovered well 😅. Our Pastor just left after reading a blessing and praying for our new boy. Tests continue through tomorrow when we can checkout and go home. All good things 🙏

After tested, pricked, and prodded for two days, Clement and Alexandra can finally come home. All of his assessments rendered great results. Given he is a big baby they had to do an extra set of glucose monitoring (via small pricks in his feet) to ensure he is eating enough for his size. His skin cleared up too! We also noticed he's starting to open his eyes for longer durations. Meeting eyes with Clement is such a special feeling. So far he loves skin-on-skin time, but is not so happy when he lay him on his own. Looks like we'll need to ease into that 😅

Day 5 in the books 🌃. It’s finally feeling like our little family is falling into a rhythm. A few highlights in the last few days: - Clement is “cluster feeding”. He’ll spend hours at a time eating w/ momma and finds so much comfort just being near her. With me, he has a ~2hr expiration before he demands momma back (I’ll have to think of some techniques to win back his favor later). His weight is also quite good! He needed to gain 200g within two weeks and after a few days, he’s more than halfway there. - Breast feeding was a little tough to start with because Clement had a tongue tie which limited how well he could move his tongue. After a trip to the dentist and a tiny snip under the tongue, his latching has greatly improved. At the office, he got a little crowd oohing and aahing: “Wow, look how big he is, bellissimo!” - The food menu at the house has been top ⭐. Alexandra froze portions of our favorites of the last month that we are digging our way through (Alexandra’s vegetarian bolognese is out of this world). Also, friends have been dropping off soups, desserts, and home cooked meals. Tonight we had an amazing spicy curry from our british/asian friend. - We mentioned before that Clement only wants to sleep skin-on-skin. But we managed to find he will sleep in the portable bassinet if lined with alpaca fur and if he’s wearing german wool and a swedish onesie—this boy is starting to get some exotic preferences already 😅. Also, thanks Aunt Nuccia for the swaddle+side lay pro tip. Thank you all for the love from afar, he’s feeling it 💜

We just passed Clement's one week birthday 🎂. And every day we are noticing more changes. Some highlights in the last few days: - Alice (our midwife/doula) and has been the best support, doing comprehensive checks on Alexandra and Clement every few days. This time around we got the official swaddle lesson. Not only is it cute seeing him in a little cocoon, but it actually does seem to calm him. - It happened. The thing multiple people said would happen. But I didn't expect it so soon! What I thought was a normal diaper change turned into that scene from a movie where the baby boy starts peeing everywhere while the parent freaks out trying to figure out what to do. Well, it took multiple diapers, but I managed through it. - Interestingly, the baking schedule has been unaffected by Clement's birth. Our in-house sourdough baker has been getting consistent requests for bread + bagels on a weekly basis. - Just got this amazingly HD baby monitor. I have a feeling the geek in me is going to want to get more high-tech baby equipment soon... - The first family members to visit Clement have just landed ✈️! Exciting few days ahead.

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This weekend was filled with highlights but some real challenges: - On Friday, we went to the Consultorio (the health agency that helps transition newborns from delivery to a pediatrician). The lady helping us noticed inflammation of Clement’s breast tissue and advised we go see a doctor that day. We went back to the hospital where a team of doctors checked him out. Many newborns get small breast buds in the first days/weeks of life because of mom’s hormones passing to the baby (goes away naturally). However, it can become a problem if it gets infected and Clement’s were reddening and headed in that direction. Left untreated, we risked things becoming very serious. For Alexandra and I, this was the first real health concern we’ve had with our boy. Despite the reassurance, it weighed heavily for days until we started seeing good progress with him and response to the antibiotics. All is well now, but it was a real scare. - Clement’s first family visit came via Grandma & Großpapi this week. So special. Clem took to them quite naturally. Grandparents have taken up cooking, furniture assembly, shelf installation, diaper change tag teaming, and more! (warning: the new standard for Clement visitors has been set). - Clement’s middle name is “Henning”, taking after the same middle name as his Großpapi. It’s a northern German name that combines “ing” (meaning son of) with the shortened version of either Johannes (John) or Heinrich (Henry), depends on the region. I think I like the “Son of John” connection given my middle name is John 😊 - Alexandra’s recovery really took a turn recently. Her sciatica has improved a lot and she can be seen strolling (literally) through the city now. Still a long road, but was encouraging to see.