One Week In

Hey all!  So I'm one week in to this parenthood thing now!  Allie is a week old.  I actually noticed the clock around 8:45am this morning and realized we had passed the one week milestone (she was born at 8:23 last Wednesday).  Time really has flown by!

Taken at the hospital on her birthday.

In the last week, we've gotten to know more about the tiny person we are now raising.
Some things we have discovered about Allie this week:

• Clyde loves her and seems to want to protect her and is concerned any time she is upset.

When we brought her home he was very curious about her, and in the past week, he loves following whoever has her around the house to see what she is doing.  The other night we put her in her bassinet for bed and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed and she starting to cry and Clyde freaked out, barking and whining til we came in to get her.  There's been several moments like that in the past week.  It's pretty cute how concerned about her he is.

• She likes it when people rub her feet- it helps calm her down when she's upset.  It's especially effective when Greg does it.  Bouncing and shhing also seem to help.
• She loves waiting til you are either in the middle of changing her or right after you have changed her to poop or pee.  Especially if you try to sponge bathe her (we think it's the warm water), she will get you every time!  Nice right!?
• With the exception of the first night at home, when none of us had any clue what we were doing, she is a pretty good sleeper.  The magic formula for us seems to be that she sleeps in the bassinet attachment on the Pack N Play, lower half of her body swaddled- WITHOUT her arms (they must be free or she freaks out), white noise, and belly full of milk.  If all these conditions are met, we can usually go like a four hour stretch of sleep at a time (the doctor said that's fine), at least we have the past three nights anyway.  I usually have to wake her up to eat, but it seems like she could almost go longer.

• She is a pretty good eater- breast feeding is going pretty well.  I wondered for a while how breast feeding was going to go for me.  My mom had a pretty easy time with it and I hoped I would inherit that from her, and am happy to say that I think I'm one of the lucky ones that can breast feed without too many issues.  So far the biggest problem has been that I've been pretty engorged since my milk came in.  It's surreal how big my boobs are right now and they hurt!  I've had to pump slightly before most feedings in the past few days, just to get Allie to latch because otherwise she's trying to latch on to these giant hard bowling balls.  I already have a ton of frozen breast milk, even from just a little bit of pumping before feedings.  My colostrum supply was also pretty great, so I think I just got really lucky with my supply and how well Allie does with breast feeding.  I will say though, that it's not exactly like I imagined.  It's not like I just put her at my boob and she eats, I definitely have to trick her into it by using a pacifier and changing to the boob or calming her down for a while first if she's fussy.  Sometimes I can get her to latch immediately, and other times it almost doesn't happen and I'm trying to be patient as I run through lots of tactics trying to get her to latch.  I also sometimes can feed her in the glider using My Brest Friend (that thing is great), and other times, it works better to lie down in bed and do side-by-side.  I spend a lot of time just trying different things until she latches and eats.  I never knew that it was like that.
• She loves Wubbanub pacifiers.  We have a bear and a monkey one and she LOVES them.  I was worried about her with a paci at first, but the doctor said it's fine as long as she is feeding well, and they work great to calm her down, so I'm ok with it.

• She's not too crazy about hats (I think she gets that from me).  They usually either fall off or she looks kinda mad when they're on.

• She falls asleep in the car whenever it's moving.

Allie had her first check up at the pediatrician on Monday and passed with flying colors.  Her birth weight was 7 lbs 13 oz, but she was down to 7 lbs 5 oz when we left the hospital Friday.  Her weight Monday was 7.65, so her doctor was happy with that.  We spent all weekend tracking feedings and diapers, so it was nice to know that I have successfully fed her enough to keep up her weight and keep her system moving the way it's supposed to.  Cool!  

As for me, well, recovering from having a baby has been interesting.  I mentioned I had a second degree tear and that's been about as pleasant as you might imagine (not at all).  In the hospital they gave me a routine to follow which was to rinse with a squeeze bottle, spray with a pain relieving aerosol spray, put a giant pad in my underwear, a padsicle (like a frozen diaper), and a couple Tucks pads on top of that.  I've basically followed that routine for the last week, without the padsicle (I just used those at the hospital for the first few days).  I also have a prescription for Midol and was advised to take Colace (stool softener).  Fun times.  I'm not gonna lie, I have been sore.  Every day it's gotten better though, and today I even decided I could do a walk around the neighborhood and it went pretty good.

My weight is down to 14 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight now, and every day my belly is getting smaller.   I think I gained between 30-35 lbs total during pregnancy depending on doctors vs. home scale, so I've lost about 15-20 lbs since last week, which is cool with me after barely moving all week.  Hopefully it'll only continue once I'm actually moving more.

I'm pretty much enamored with our baby girl...  Seriously, she is the cutest thing I've ever seen, and I can't believe how lucky I am.  It was worth all the heartache to get her.