May 4th! It's amazing how fast time flies (and also drags on) when hours and days just run together. Since I don't really ever have a "break" or a "rest" it just continues with no end. My world goes in little 3 or 4 hour increments, that's the average time between nursings. I look up and days have passed and it feels like all I have done is nurse, try to get Emmalyn to sleep, change diapers and do my best to keep Max happy and entertained.
Because I didn't like the pictures taken in the hospital, I found a photographer to come take pictures in our house. I learned that ideally, these would have been done in her first 2 weeks...oh well. She is still tiny and sweet. We had a photographer come to the house and she took pics of not just Emmalyn but the family as well. It was certainly nice having her come to the house. It meant that Maxwell could be entertained (distracted) at home easily and I was able to nurse Emmalyn part way through the session when she got hungry.
A couple selfies since I was actually dressed, with makeup on, and my hair done for the pictures.
Love this boy
Love that smile
Max wanted to take pictures of Momma too
He asked me to make a silly face
Momma and her kids (and her double chin? nice)
I wish Max wasn't a little blurry in this pic!
Our usual bedtime routine has changed with the addition of Emmalyn. She rarely is happily asleep in her bed during this time and is usually fussy, eating, or being held. So often I am just an observer. :(
How is Emmalyn doing at 3 weeks?
She is having more awake time and starting to look around but still sleeps a ton! I am not sure she understands "nighttime" yet. She will turn to noises and make eye contact. She seems to struggle to poop - often when you are changing her diaper and wipe her, she will poop or pee again. After one diaper change, we learned to keep a diaper cloth on the changing pad underneath her. We have already stained many of them... It is so different to change a girl's diaper! And her poop stinks!
Her hair seems to be thinning out. I hope she doesn't lose it all at once like Maxwell did.
She has furry ears covered in dark little hairs. :)
Still no sign of a birthmark.
She no longer has the newborn rash but instead has baby acne.
Her complexion is still dark which makes it tricky sometimes to determine if she has diaper rash.
We have to work hard to get her to burp. She tends to just hold onto them forever and then ends up spitting up.
She has been nursing closer to an every 4 hour pattern and is doing great at nursing. I am enjoying nursing again. She rarely nurses on both sides and usually falls lightly asleep (but keeps sucking) at about ten minutes in.
She has such little ankles and legs! It still shocks me every time I change her diaper.
She is strong both with her legs and her necks!
She gets mad QUICK especially when she's hungry.
You hear lots of grunts from her when she is trying to go to sleep.
She will take the binky but struggles to keep it in.
Peter has the magic touch - she sleeps forever when she's with him and he is also able to get her down much easier than I can.
During the night we have the same routine as we did with Max. When she wakes up to eat, he gets her unswaddled, changes her diaper, and brings her too me while I am using the restroom, washing my hands, and getting positioned. Peter goes back to sleep and I nurse her and try to get her down. However, there are times that after struggling for an hour or so to get her to sleep, I will "tap out" and switch with Peter. The stinker gets her down like in 10 minutes. UGH! But I always try first so that Peter's sleep isn't interrupted. I am aware that he does need to wake up and go to work.
Max has warmed up to his baby sister and will give her kisses and says goodnight to her. He will sometimes want to touch her but doesn't understand watching out for her if he is close to her - for example if they are both on the bed he will roll around or move his legs without an understanding of how close he is to hitting her. It's a reminder to me that even though he loves her and understands "being soft" with her, he is still a danger to her and needs to be supervised around her.
Her 0-3 month clothes are still really big on her.
She doesn't like her baths but hasn't had a real one yet (we have given her sponge baths prior to her doctor visit and haven't given her a bath since the visit when he gave us the okay). It's interesting that I'm not scared to give her a bath alone without Peter's help since with Maxwell, I absolutely wouldn't do it without him being right there helping me.
How am I doing at 3 weeks? This is going to sound negative, but it's where things are at - I'm not going to sugar coat it.
I'm overwhelmed and can't do much multi-tasking or really much of anything. I get tired easily. I'm super emotional - not just sad but happy things too will make me cry. I don't feel strongly connected to Emmalyn yet. I don't even strongly desire to hold her all the time and am grateful when someone else is there to do it. I've always really adored little babies but man am I wiped out! Thank goodness Brittany is around to help. My tailbone and incision still cause me quite a bit of pain. I am confident that all of this is "normal" and that part of the issue is my unrealistic expectations and high standards I've unfairly set for myself but I am who I am. I laugh because at some point in the first week I wrote a "to-do" list of things I wanted to accomplish while I was on leave so that I wouldn't get to the end of it and feel like I did nothing. Yeah, I've done very little on that "to-do" list.
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