The First Week

Sunday, Haley was 5 weeks old. One week ago today, we brought her home from the hospital. It has been a roller coaster journey - one you all have prayed through with us. This last week has been challenging, but blessed, and we are so, so, SO happy to have our little girl home.

Brent and I are tired, but not any more tired than we were having to traffic across town to spend time with our baby. The bonus is we get to nap with her now! We are staying on her schedule of feeding her every three hours. Brent and I won't be able to keep up the shift work on the midnight, 3 a.m., and 6 a.m. feedings much longer. Thankfully, the pediatrician has given us the go-ahead to wait five hours at night, or until Haley wakes us up, to feed her. Whichever comes first. We'll probably start with waiting four hours - and graduate ourselves from there. We'll get this feeding schedule down and it will work for all of us. And we will be happy and never fuss. I just know it. (How many of you are ready to smack me upside the head with a reality check now?)

We've been snippy with each other, Brent and I. I don't know what his problem is. (just typing that sentence made me laugh so hard....) I kid. We've both been a little on-edge lately, and sometimes our sensitivity-meters are off-kilter. We've had little spats, but nothing that can't be overlooked with the help of a few swear words and fine wine. Again - I kid. (about the swearing and the wine...so far they haven't helped.)

I don't know where this sense-of-humor has been hiding, but I'm cracking myself up here. How many of my relatives are embarrassed by that last paragraph? Show of hands! It's okay - you'll get used to my kind of crazy. And you'll still be embarrassed that we share pieces of the same DNA. Ok, ok, back to the week we've had.....

It has been a stressful week for me because at times I felt like when I wasn't taking care of Haley, feeding her, changing her diaper, soothing her, etc., I was pumping. If I wasn't doing either of those things, I was napping. Nothing else. Baby, pumping, napping. Our house wasn't getting cleaned, our laundry wasn't getting washed, our groceries weren't getting cooked - nothing productive was taking place, with the exception of me pumping between 8 and 12 ounces AT A TIME. I am a breast milk factory. And it's exhausting. A while ago, Brent and I bought a deep-freeze to store the bottles of milk I was pumping. The deep freeze is chock-full of bottled milk. And it does. not. stop. I can't go anywhere, or if I do it can't be for too long, because I need to come home and pump. At this rate, Haley will be having breast milk on her cereal when she's 15. I don't know how to keep up with myself! It's ridiculous how much and how often I'm pumping. But, it's also pretty awesome that I can take care of Haley in that way, and that she hasn't required any supplementation at all.

Brent and I have also had some laugh-out-loud moments...like when he was trying to entertain Haley with his "Baby Go" app on his Blackberry. Every button you push, the phone makes a noise, or says a letter or number, etc. Brent was pushing and pushing buttons and his phone was making all sorts of noises for quite some time. Finally Brent says to Haley, "Daddy can't figure out how to unlock this application." I laughed pretty hard at that one. Or the statement I made after Haley had a little bit of spittle that rolled right off her bib, "This bib isn't very observant." Yes, I said observant. I meant absorbent, but I was apparently running on intellectual fumes. Yesterday Brent and I had a couple of exchanges that left us both laughing. And of course there was the confession of my husband, who tried to weigh our daughter on our kitchen scale by putting her in a 13 x 9 baking dish!! I'm afraid to take him grocery shopping now, for fear he'll try to weigh her in the produce scale. He's all about getting her weight - right down to the ounce! We're losing our minds, and its hilarious.

We're still required to try to focus and keep up with outside-world responsibilities. We had Haley's first doctor appointment (as you've seen me reference) and it went really well. Our little girl is growing, growing, growing. At the pediatrician's office, she weighed in at 5 lbs 2 oz. She's already over 5 pounds!! I can't hardly believe it. She looks like a different baby than when she first made her appearance five weeks ago. She is healthy, happy, and so adorable. Even if she does want to stay up and party after her midnight feeding....

So as we wind down one week and begin another in the rest of our lives, I'll summarize by saying it's been great. Yes I'm tired, yes I'm cranky when my husband can't read my mind and do what I want him to do without me having to verbalize anything, but this is awesome. Earlier today while I was in my recliner eating the last of the Haagen Dazs strawberry ice cream and listening to my Enya Pandora Radio station, Haley was asleep on my chest. As the sun was shining brightly and the birds were singing loudly outside, I snuggled on my little girl and thought, "It can't get any better than this. Thank you, Lord."

So there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on....