How To Take Pictures of a Six-Week Old

Not just any six-week old but a six-week old who is going through a growth spurt....

Step 1: Wait for baby to wake up from her nap. DO NOT wake her up yourself, this can only end badly.
Step 2: Feed baby, if hungry. Burp baby and hope she gets all her spit up out now.
Step 3: Dress baby.
Step 4: Undress baby from the adorable outfit you wanted to take pictures of her in because she waited until she was in said adorable outfit to have a blow-out.
Step 5: Change the now fussy baby.
Step 6: Put now fussy baby into another, not as cute but still ok, outfit.
Step 7: Put screaming baby down on boppy and try to get her to stop screaming.
Step 8: Pick fussy baby back up and dance with her singing Baby by Justin Beber because fussy baby has Beber Fever.
Step 9: Sigh a big sigh and give baby what she really wants - her pacifier.
Step 10: Take pictures with paci in mouth. Be frustrated about it.
Step 11: Realize fussy baby is hot and remove top layer (read: cute layer) of her outfit leaving her in a white unisex onesie.

You now have a perfectly content and smiley 6-week old baby to take pictures of.

Natch.


Suck, suck, suck, oh, this is so wonderful for 54 seconds...


Then this happens.

Finally, after some more dancing and once she has cooled off a bit (mentally and physically)....we got these gems:






Moral of the story: baby hates pretty things.

A Happy/Good Baby?

Are we jinxing ourselves by saying we have a very good and very happy baby? I guess we can't say happy yet since we are just getting our first little smiles here and there but for sure we have a good baby. Everyone who visits comments on how good she is and we do feel quite lucky with how easy she has been for us. Some examples:

She is very consistent.

She will cry when:

1. She has a wet or dirty diaper. Although, she will sit in it for a while. She normally starts fussing about it being dirty when we move her or pick her up.
2. She is hungry. She has a very distinct, "FEED ME NOW, MOM!" cry. As soon as I get myself near enough to her that she knows food is imminent, she stops crying and starts pecking at me. I used to relate this to a little bird. Now, I see her more as a piranha. Haha.
3. She has to poop or burp and can't. This can sometimes be relieved with a pacifier, but mostly we just have to find a good spot for her until she gets through it.

She will stop being fussy when:

1. We put her in her Fisher Price bunny swing. This guy:  http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4360510. She adores it. She can be screaming her head off and as soon as we put her in there and get it cranked up, she settles down. She sleeps well in there. Sometimes too well and she will sleep right through a feeding time without me noticing.
2. We put her in anything that vibrates. The bouncy chair has a vibrate feature and that helps to keep her occupied when I need to get something done. Most of the time, that is showering. I have a new trick where I put her bouncy seat in the tub (we have one of those useless garden tubs) and I take a shower. I can see her from the shower, so it's a win-win for both of us. She also has a mobile on her bassinet that vibrates the bassinet. This really helps to put her to sleep at night. It makes me worry about when we put her in her crib but, we'll worry about that when the time comes.
3. We are singing and dancing with her. I think this is like the swing to her and she really enjoys the motion. We have burned many calories dancing around the house with her in our arms already. 

She doesn't care who holds her. When she is being held, she is normally pretty content. We have had lots of visitors come to the house and she happily lets anyone who wants to hold her. She even laid in our friend's 4 year old's arms for a while. I loved seeing that. Both of them were so good.

She doesn't yet have a parent preference. Either one of us can pick her up and she's just happy to be with us. This will probably change as she gets bigger, but for now, it's great.

She sleeps great. She snoozes a lot during the day but she also sleeps in 4 hours stretches at night. This started around week 3. During week 3, I was waking up every hour thinking she was going to wake up, so that made it a bit stressful for me. Now I understand, she will let us know when she is hungry. So, we are letting her sleep. On average, she will be asleep by 10, awake at 2, asleep by 3 and awake by 6 or 7. It's wonderful! Let's hope she continues to be a good sleeper.

It's really nice to have a baby this good. We are waiting for the ball to drop, though. I think she's going through a bit of a growth spurt right now because she is eating every 2 hours instead of every 2.5-3 hours. As soon as she eats, though, she's content. We'll take it. I just pray this keeps up!!

One Month Old!

I'm one month old today!

Likes: Mommy, Daddy, bunny swing, pacifiers, milk, going for walks in the Ergo.
Dislikes: Dirty diapers, formula (okay, Mom doesn't like that, I don't mind it).

Milestones: Smiles!! Finally hit my birth weight this week and gained more!

We're looking forward to seeing what next month brings!

Friday Ramblings

Just some thoughts I've been putting together. They're too short to each have their own post..


The second night we spent in the hospital was a loooooong night. She was up all night, we didn't know how to soothe her yet (we ended up putting her in the carseat and rocking her) and we were both sleep deprived from the first night. Yup, the first night, we didn't sleep a wink. We were too busy staring at that beautiful face. :)

It took us about 2 weeks to really get into a routine with this parenting thing. You know, just in time for my husband to go back to work. I wish he had taken a month off, so does he. 

My husband would be an awesome stay at home Dad. He has been doing the grocery shopping, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, doing the dishes, walking the dogs and everything else that needs to get done. I try to let him sleep as much as possible at night...unless he doesn't have to go to work the next day. If he doesn't have to go to work the next day, he's going to take her during the 4am fussy time.

Megan weighed 7lbs 3oz at birth. At her 5 day check-up, she weighed 6lbs 10oz. We went in for  an appointment a week later to check her weight and she was up just an ounce, at 6lbs 11oz. The doctor gave me some suggestions for helping her gain weight while exclusively breast feeding. We went back a few days later and she was down to 6lbs 6oz. At that point, the doctor was worried and decided we had to take another step.

Introducing: formula. Now my routine is breastfeed one side, breastfeed the other side, feed formula, pump. It's a lot of work and it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get everything done (including burp time). An hour and 15 minutes later, we do it all over again. We went back in today, 3 days after our last visit, and she is up to 6lbs 15oz! We're finally getting her back up to her birth weight, where she should have been after 2 weeks. We go back for our 1 month well-baby visit next Friday. She should be at and above birth weight by then if this keeps up. Finally.

I was very upset to have to add formula. Now that I see it's helping her? I'm totally okay with using it. Am I going to work on weaning from it if I can get my breast milk to work just as well as formula? Yes. I am going to see a lactation consultant on Monday. We will do a pre-feeding and post feeding weigh-in to see what she is getting from me during a normal feeding. She will also watch how she feeds to make sure that she is eating the whole time she's on there instead of just using me as a pacifier (fun!!)


This girl is absolutely the joy of our lives. She is happy and content and (fingers crossed) so far a really good baby. On Wednesday, she will be a month old! I can't believe it. She's already growing up way too fast.

I love being a Mom. It's a lot of work already but it's amazing. I still can't believe we made this little girl!! Gotta run, it's time for another feeding! (insert barnyard sounds here)

The Birth Story - Recovery

TMI ALERT!!!

Yeah, just don't read this one if you're not into talk about stuff "down there."

I was pretty lucky with the birth of M in that I didn't have a lot of bad things happen "down there." I had some minor tearing that my OB spent about a half hour stitching up. I didn't feel a thing thanks to the glorious epidural. I don't really remember the order of events here but I'm guessing I was stitched up after I delivered the placenta. I remember my OB asking me if I had one push left in me. That's all it took to get the placenta out. I didn't have any interest in seeing my placenta, so I didn't ask and looked away when he pulled it out. Because of the epidural, I didn't feel that either. I've heard some horror stories about placenta delivery but mine was easy and routine. One of the things my hospital does is set up a pitocin drip once the baby has been delivered. This helps your body continue to contract, which assists with getting the placenta out and shrinking your uterus.

When I had been stitched up and the OB was done with his work, then came the most painful part of recovery. After every birth, the nurses spend some time pushing on your stomach, around the belly button area, to help get the uterus to start contracting and shrinking down. They're also looking for blood loss. That was something I did feel. The blood that just came gushing out when they pushed on my belly. Gross. Apparently, I was losing a lot more blood than was normal, so they started me on another bag of pitocin to keep the contractions coming for a while. I also had the unfortunate experience of getting my first ever suppositories. My OB inserted FIVE of them. I don't know what it was he inserted, but it was something that helps to stop the bleeding. That was not something I expected and not really something I would like to experience again, thank you very much.

When the nurses push on your belly, it is horribly painful. It feels like someone is stabbing you in the belly button from the inside. I was pushed on a lot. I don't know if it was more than normal because of my extra blood loss or not but I really started to dread every time the nurses came into the room, knowing that was coming.

Speaking of blood loss....

PSA: There is a LOT of blood after childbirth. A lot. If I hadn't seen posts on online chat boards or had a friend who recently gave birth tell me, I would have had no idea. Seriously, it's absolutely frightening how much blood you lose after birth. Every woman goes through this no matter what type of birth they have and whether they have extra blood loss issues or not! Thankfully, the nurses at the hospital have seen it all and know how to help you manage it and keep it contained.

One thing I did not know about before I gave birth was the contractions that occur AFTER the baby is born. Yes, after. They suck. Big time. Even better, they get worse when you're feeding the baby. Not only do you have contractions, but you bleed during them, as well. More stuff that you can feel that is just gross. Blech. I was offered pain pills - Vicodin and ibuprofen. I accepted both. I had been off pain pills for 10 months, so I was all over that stuff. Until...I started feeling really weird and spacey after taking a Vicodin. After that, I quit the hard stuff and stuck to Ibuprofen.

One last thing for all moms to be out there: The hospital will offer you colace. Take it. Make sure you have some at home. Keep taking it. Don't stop 2 weeks after birth. T.R.U.S.T. me on this one. Keep taking it for a while longer. Just...don't ask.

I was on a big high after she was born. I didn't feel much pain, other than the contractions, until the day I went home from the hospital. That's when I really started to feel it. Sitting in the wheelchair for the ride out to the car was extremely awkward. I had M in her carseat on my lap and I couldn't sit directly down on the chair. We got her carseat in to the car and I sat next to her on the way home. I sat on a pillow in the car because I just couldn't bear the thought of even 10 minutes on another hard surface. It took me about a week and a half to sit down on a hard surface without being totally uncomfortable. The couch and bed were my friends during that time and my husband was my personal butler. He stayed home for two weeks and essentially did everything for me so I didn't have to get up unless I had to.

Overall, I am pretty happy with how everything went. I had a good delivery and my "complications" after birth really weren't all that bad in the grand scheme of things. Today, our little girl is 3 weeks old (three weeks already!!) and she is so worth all the pain associated with pregnancy, labor and delivery and recovery.

I just can't put up a post without some pictures of the end result. :)