Baby Update

Annabella is doing great. We are traveling for Thanksgiving, and she's met a lot of her extended family. She's smiling and cooing more and more.

Here's a picture of Annabella and Auntie Corrie. She likes to grin and coo now when you tickle her chin, which you can see :)


She's traveling pretty well. She's only cried for about 45 minutes of the car rides so far.

Annabella is growing like a weed. We think she's close to double her birth weight now, but we won't get another official weigh-in till December 8. She's almost outgrown some of the outfits that were swimming on her originally though.

Jason and I are doing well too. Each week is a little easier than the last, and she's sleeping more and more consistently through the night. It's quite a struggle to get her down for bedtime, but once she's there, she usually sleeps 5 or 6 hours straight. Jas and I definitely appreciate the extra sleep.

I need to get back to family stuff, but I thought I'd give a quick update. I owe people phone calls, emails, thank you notes, and baby announcements (not to mention Christmas cards...) I promise I'll try to catch up on all of that soon!

Quick update

A few mornings back Annabella woke up in such a good mood, which was nice since she'd been a sour-puss the night before. I carried her down the stairs and talked to her as I went, and her entire face broke out in this great big smile, and she held it for several seconds. Totally melted my heart. Was nice to see that maybe my child does love me, especially after she'd screamed at me so much the day before.

She's also cooing a lot more, which is also super nice. For the first so many weeks babies only make upset noises; so hearing them make happy noises is surprisingly relieving. You start to feel like maybe you're not messing them up, at least not too bad.

Jason and I are starting to be able to laugh at her sometimes when she's angry, which I think is good. Especially since we can only see to one of her needs at a time. If we're already changing her diaper, and she's screaming because she's also hungry, she's just going to have to wait a couple minutes to eat. So she'll scream for a minute and then she'll stop and pout. She sticks that lower lip out like a champ. And it's just too cute not to be funny. (We've tried to get a picture of her pouting, but she doesn't hold it for long, and she has to be mad to do it...and we're usually trying to make her happy when she's mad instead of trying to take pictures of her angry. Maybe we'll catch a pout one of these days though.)

Our sweet little girl is also working her lungs more these days. I'm not sure why, but she's fussy quite often. She seems to be fighting sleep. That last hour before we finally get her to sleep at night is especially rough. In fact, I'm on the phone with Jason right now and I can hear her screaming in the background now.

I'll try to update more soon, and I'll include a new picture next time!

First day back

I went to work today for a half day.  I didn't realize how nervous I was about it, but now that I'm back home I can feel that familiar low that means a bunch of adrenaline is leaving my system.

Work was good overall.  I felt like me, and Jason had a good morning with Annabella.  Being away from Annabella was very hard though.  I don't know how I'm going to cope when it's time to put her in daycare.  Knowing that Jason was home taking care of her was what made it all okay today.

We've taken more pictures, but haven't uploaded them to the computer yet.  When we do, I'll try to put some more up here.  Until then, if you want to see what pictures we do have posted, shoot me an email and I'll send you a link to where some are posted.

For those looking for Annabella updates:  Annabella is 6 weeks 1 day old today.  She is more and more aware of the world around her and likes to watch her mobiles.  She doesn't like bright lights and puts her little hands in front of her eyes to shield them.  She's starting to smile in response to my smiles, which melts my heart every time.  She's cooing more and more, and is more able to wake up mid-nap and go back to sleep without us comforting her.  Her favorite trick seems to be waiting to go pee until the diapers off her butt during a change, which causes many costume changes.  These mid-change pees sometimes have distance, and she's managed to pee all over Daddy's clothes the other day.  She's starting to like to nap on her swing, which is nice because it gives me a break to eat lunch and blog sometimes!  She grunts really often, but especially when she's trying to break her arms out from being swaddled.  Even when she's fussy she's the cutest baby I've ever seen, though I might be biased.  

One month

I can hardly believe it.  Annabella is one month old today.  She has grown and changed so much in the past month.  

This picture was taken this past Saturday right before we took Annabella on her first walk, which she loved.  I hope we get some warmer weather so we can take her on a few more walks this fall.

Annabella's personality is showing more and more.  She loves to snuggle and sleep on my chest, but she hates to be messed with once she's asleep.  If I lean down to give her a kiss on her forehead and I disturb her sleep, she throws her head back and grunts.  She's also looking around more and smiling.  I think she might actually be starting to smile in response to my smile, which is super cool.  And now when she looks at me, I can see her actually focusing on my face and listening to my voice.  And she's beginning to coo.  

She also is growing like a weed.  I didn't realize how scrawny she was at the hospital until we got her home and she started adding some meat to her bones.  At the hospital the skin on her hands and feet was literally hanging off her bones.  There was just nothing under it.  Skin and bones.  Now she's got chubby little fingers and toes.  Her face has filled out a bunch too (especially the cheeks), and she looks so much longer to us.  Her clothes are also fitting better, and she's even outgrown her first pair of socks.  She's still smaller than some newborns, but to me she looks huge.

Also her eyes seem to be getting darker and her hair is getting lighter.  She looks like she'll be a blond baby soon.

Watching her grow so quickly is bittersweet.  I'm really looking forward to when she's more interactive, but I feel like time is slipping through my fingertips.  She already needs me less than before.  She's holding her head up more and more and can take a bottle.  Just one short month ago she was in my belly and dependent on me for everything.  So yeah, I cried when she lost her umbilicol cord, and I saved it (although this could have more to do with the fact that she lost the cord at 1 week and that I was pretty emotionally raw right then...)  And I cried when she took that first bottle.  One short month ago I wouldn't have understood why somebody would cry at these things, but now I do.  It's both exciting and hard to see your baby start to grow up.

One thing I'm really looking forward to is more sleep, which I'm hoping will come soon.  Sometimes holding her and snuggling with her is the best feeling in the world.  And sometimes I'm just so desperate for sleep that I can't even take in the moment, even if I try.  And crying in the middle of the night when I'm up yet again to breastfeed is pretty much par for the course right now.  

All in all though, being Annabella's mom is the best thing that's happened to me.  I love her so much my heart aches when I look at her.  

Delirium

I used to dream I was drinking Diet Coke.  

Now I dream that I'm feeding my baby.  Realizing in my sleep that I'm asleep and therefore probably crushing my baby, I wake up in a panic, feel that my front is wet with milk, and that I'm hugging a pillow to my chest.  I look and look for the baby, and finally remember that she's either in her bassinet or downstairs being held by someone else.  

Last night I quit waking up in a panic and instead later believed that I'd actually fed her.  Which almost led to her being put back to bed hungry.  It took several minutes of awake reasoning to figure out that I really hadn't fed her in hours.  

I don't know how single mothers do this.  I couldn't do this without Jason.

Besides almost starving my child due to exhaustion induced delirium, things are good here.  Annabella seems healthy and happy, and she's starting to sleep more and more on her back at night.  

I used to say that we were having problems because Annabella wouldn't sleep through the night unless she was being held, and people would look at me funny and say that we couldn't really expect that...  "Through" turned out to not be the right word.  "During" would have been the word of choice there.  Annabella wouldn't sleep during the night unless she was being held.  

So now that she's starting to do better and better with that, we are all managing a little better.  

Being a new mom is both awesome and hard.  Some days I can't say enough about how perfect she is.  Some days I feel like I'm going to die unless I get more sleep soon.

Today falls somewhere between those 2 extremes...

Above birth weight

Annabella passed her birth weight on Monday, weighing in at 5lbs and 15oz. This is great news because it means we can let her feed on demand instead of trying to force feed her every 3 to 4 hours. Hopefully this will help Amber and I get some longer uninterrupted sleep.

Here's Annabella's favorite sleeping position, difficult to keep up all the time, but awfully cute and adorable.




And one more cute picture of her from the hospital:

Annabella Grace

Just wanted to update everyone with her name. She also had her first pediatric appointment today and everything is going well. We are still so in love with her.