Numbering Days

This is my last week on maternity leave, I start back to work on Monday. I've already been doing a couple things with my youth group - but just planning from home and going out in the evenings when Brandon is home with Andy. Anyway, next week the new routine starts and brings mixed emotions for me. I do want to go back to work. I enjoy my job and feel frustrated when I'm missing things or skipping opprotunities to be with the teens. So, it will be good to jump in again. On the other hand, it has been great to be home with my Miranda. I like the pace and rythem we've found in the past few weeks. The flexibility is nice, the company is great, and the option of napping in the afternoon is really helpful! I'm a bit concerned about the sleepy factor in heading back to the office.

I'm very lucky to not have worries about our babysitter. I know that's a stress for many new parents. But Miranda is going to stay with a very sweet friend of ours and her own little granddaughter. She offered her services when we were pregnant, and the plan has just come together beautifully. We went over to visit this morning and she rocked Andy to sleep like a pro. I think they'll get along very well. And Miranda will have a good friend in her 18-month-old granddaughter.

So, other moms out there, I need some advice. How do I store up enough milk for Miranda at the daycare? How much does she need on hand? And what's a good way to collect, store, transport, and use it? I have ideas on how to do each, but would love to hear what's worked for other working moms best. I might run over and feed her myself once during a daycare day - since our babysitter lives 2 blocks from the church and it would take me less time to do that than pump at work. The timing will be tricky though. Well, speaking of feeding issues, I've got a little girl begging for attention right now - gotta go!

One month check-up

Andy had her 1 month check-up yesterday. It's a couple days early for her actually being a month old, but that's alright. Everything looks really good. She's growing, seeing, hearing, eating, doing just fine! Her weight was 8 lbs 7 oz now; almost 2 whole pounds more than when she was born. She certainly looks and feels big to us every now and then. I can't believe some babies start at this size. That's huge.

She's starting to interact a little more. Not old enough to respond, or mimic, or laugh at our funny jokes yet. But, she'll stare you down and give you all manner of quizzical eyebrow looks.

3 Weeks Old

Week three of young Miranda's life is flying by. We've been busy with tons of little things. It's hard to say what fills up all my time, yet I know it's full! I've put in probably 5 hours of work this week, which should be nothing compared to a full 25 hr week; but somehow it's kept us hopping. Every little task certainly takes a little longer with kid in toe. (I tried to do some grocery shopping on my own the other day - it was tricky. Andy's car seat didn't fit well into the front of the cart, so I set it down in the main basket. This left very little room for groceries! You should have seen the poor little darling with boxes and bags and fruit pilled all around her. By the time I got to the counter I realized I didn't bring in any money because my wallet was in the diaper bag, which Idecided I didn't need for groceries. SoI lugged her back out to the car, then back in to pay, and back out again. Thankfully, I was at the 'hometown' store and they take your bags to the car for you; I've never been so grateful for that service until this week.)

I did develop/come-down with mastitis this week. It's an infection in the breast. Rather painful and annoying. Doc put me on antibiotics which are certainly helping things heal. The first day was bad though -as it comes with flu like symptoms. A restless night of chills and sweats is only made longer with feeding and rocking sessions every 3 hours. I'm already doing a lot better though; and can even feed her directly now instead of pumping to feed.

Daddy thinks our little girl is getting big, but we haven't had her weighed in about 2 weeks so I'm not sure. It's hard to tell when you look at someone everyday. Speaking of Daddy - Brandon is so good at his new role! He helps with every aspect of Miranda's care, even changes the extra stinky diapers without complaint. Now that I've been pumping so much he's taken over a few feedings too. He's a good daddy and has the magic touch to comfort his daughter to sooth her to sleep. There's some good daddy&me pictures on picasa; go check 'em out.

Thespacebar on thiskeyboardisbroken and it'sdrivingmecrazy!

2 weeks old

It's weird to think Miranda is already two weeks old. There are moments when everything is so new and different and I swear she just arrived here. But in other ways it's as if we've had her, and known her, and loved her forever. I think for the most part I feel like I've been at this motherhood thing for longer than two weeks; it definitely feels normal and natural in many ways. I thought it would be a harder adjustment - with the lack of sleep and tiny pink clothes in the laundry and that little person eating on me every 3 hours - but it all fell into place so smoothly that I can't remember life without these things.

We had house guests up until yesterday. Grandma (my mom), had been here since day 1, and for the weekend we had Papa Pete and Aunt Beth (B's sis) and her bf Tom. It was a super-fun weekend! But by yesterday evening the house was quiet and it was just the three of us. B was off of work today so we really got to settle into our family mode. It was nice, just being us, doing everything on our own. I think I expected my day to be so different with a baby - but it's really quite the same, just enhanced. We watched a movie, played the Wii, went to Walmart, did laundry and dishes and ate regular meals. It was a great relaxing day. Tomorrow is my first day all alone with my daughter while Brandon's at work. I think it'll go well. I do miss my mom though. She was such a huge help with everything, and it was fun just to get to hang out with her for so long. When does anyone get to just sit and chat and bum around with a parent for 2 whole weeks? I'm a lucky girl.

Baby's 1 week check up

Miranda is 10 days old now, so we just had our first check-up - as we were released from the hospital 1 week ago. Of course the big question is always weight gain in these first few days. I'm happy to report that our little girl is doing great!! She was born 6 lbs 10 oz, was down to 6 lbs 1 oz when we left the hospital last Thursday. Today she was already 7 lbs 2 ozs!! Can you believe that? She gained an entire pound in just this past week. I guess the breast feeding is working just fine. So that's our happy news for the day. Everything else looked great at the check-up too.

I'm going to start a new slideshow to track Andy's growth. My cousin used a special teddy bear to compare her son's growth every month. I loved these pictures, so I'm stealing her idea. We bought a very tall giraffe, named Jeffery, to take periodic pictures with. We'll start with every week (seeing as she can apparently grow a pound in one) and do every month after that. So - that's the stroy behind the Jeffery growth picture above.

First few family days

We brought Miranda home on Thursday morning! Since then we've been resting, eating, cuddling, crying, changing diapers, and watching tv. We've had our first bath (just sponge bath at this stage), our first walk outside, and our first overnight in the house. All things have gone really well. She's really a calm and happy baby so far! She mostly cries when she's messy or hungry, but is pretty easily comforted. I even clipped her nails today and pinched a bit of skin which bled a little. She yipped when it happened, gave me a very disappointed look, then got over it. Calm baby, right?!

I'm recovering pretty well. I actually feel really great, not sore or tired or anything for a while. But then I get up and move around too much, or too fast, or get up and sit down at a funny angle and I soon remember my incision pain and lack of ab muscles. Mom and Brandon have been awesome to take care of everything around the house from cooking to dishes to laundry to changing and comforting Andy and waiting on me hand and foot. So, I'm really grateful for both of them. Most of the day I'm enjoying my baby and feeling pretty good.

Our first night was a fun adventure. I think we were both geared up for a lot of work and frustration and no sleep - so it went way better than it could have. We were up for three different feeding sessions. Brandon helped get her up and changed and positioned for feeding. I would feed (obviously), which has been going a lot better than it was at the hospital, then we'd take turns on who rocked and sang and comforted her back to sleep. Once was a really quick one, the other two were 40-70 minutes each. She likes to be up after eating. She's peaceful, just looking around and hanging out, but awake for sure. Overall we got some sleep, and successfully fed and loved our little one. So, good night. She's actually been awake more today than yesterday - so I'm wondering if she'll sleep well tonight.

We go back to the hospital tomorrow morning to check her jaundice levels.

We had a couple visitors today, which is nice. If you want to come by and meet Andy, don't hesitate to call or stop by. There are a few sets of pictures on picasa. Click on the link on the right. We;ll add new albums as we take more pictures. Her face is already changing a bit from when she was born. How strange.

And then she came...

My little angel is sleeping soundly in grandma's arms, so I thought I'd take a moment to write out our birth story.

We came into the hospital about 9:00 p.m. on Sunday. We were scheduled to induce labor, hoping to have her on Mon afternoon or evening. I was actually already having pretty regular contractions when they got me hooked up to the monitors, so we just watched and timed them for a while. Around 1 am I took a half pill to speed things up a bit, since the contractions weren't really productive yet. That brought me up to about 5 minutes apart, and a pretty good level of contracting. I wasn't really in pain yet, just a big uncomfortable. B and I both slept on and off throughout the night. The nurse debated on whether or not to give me the second dose of the inducing stuff, to keep things progressing. I was doing fine, but wasn't getting any stronger or closer together - or more dialated in the process. So, about 7 am she gave me the rest of the pill.

That's when things started going poorly. I was totally overstimulated and had some contractions that didn't stop - not giving the baby a moment to rest. This stressed her out and her pulse rate dropped dangerously and often. Within moments there were 5 nurses buzzing around me and doing who knows what. It was scary. Brandon had been sleeping, but was up on his feet quickly. They gave me something by IV that stopped the contractions, but it was an muscle relaxant and it caused me to shake and spaz all throughout my body. That felt awful! Baby was still stressed, so a Dr came and broke my water and put in an internal monitor. It wasn't long before they were trying to decide if we should continue laboring like this or not. I was definitely feeling the contractions now, and they hurt. I got the epideral, which wasn't bad and helped relax me a lot. But, through monitoring and whatnot the baby was still dropping out on heart rate, and had pooped internally, and just was unhappy. So, to the c-section I was whisked.

Everything happened really quickly from then. They put Brandon in scrubs, disconnected all my machines, rolled me through the hall and into the elevator, and in minutes had me in the operating room. I stayed awake throughout the process, and Brandon held my hand and watched the whole thing over the curtain. (Gross, B) Not much to say about the c-section - it was quick and awkward, a little scary, but the nurses and drs were really reassuring. Within about 20 minutes of being in the room they lifted a wiggly little body over the curtain for 2 seconds. This was apparently my baby! I was pretty out of it, but Brandon watched the Dr clean her up from across the room. Dr, baby, and Brandon left for the nursery and I was left lying there to be stitched back up. This was really the only bad part of the process, because I was alone up there for about an hour, and then another 1/2 hour in post op recovery. They wouldn't let Brandon or my parents come see me, nor had I even met the baby yet. So, we all waiting, not so patiently through this time. Brandon was in the nursery with his yet unnammed daughter, and my parents were peering through the window, anxiously waiting a chance to meet her and see how I was doing.

Eventually, I came down, they brought her out of the nursery, we all got to hug and cry and smile together in our long-term recovery room. We named her Miranda Ann, as you already know, but we've been calling her Andy. I'm doing really well with recovery, I feel great actually - considering the circumstances. Miranda is very heathly and passing every test they give her. She's content and happy as a baby so far. Sleeping a lot, of course. Not a stellar nurser yet, but we'll keep working on it.

Brandon says this is way too long now, and I have to get back to my sweetie. Thanks for reading, thanks for caring!