Week 6

6 Weeks old on 12/26/08

Embry is 6 weeks old today, the day after her first Christmas!  This past week has been quite interesting for Embry.  She is sleeping a lot less than she was originally which caused us to try and figure out what to do with a baby while they are awake.  Before we'd change her, feed her, and put her back in her crib every 3 hours then she'd sleep for another 3 hours or so and we'd do it all over again.  Now at night that's still the routine, but in the daytime she is generally awake after feedings and she'll cry if you put her down in the crib.  This can either bring on insanity when she's crying to no avail, or sheer joy when she's content and will cuddle.  

Her first Christmas was good.  She was happy for the most part while we were opening presents.  Before that I was here with her while the family was at a church service and she cried for about an hour straight.  Nothing would soothe her until finally I decided to feed her and then she calmed down.  Anyhow, she got lots of neat things including a piggy bank, a learning to talk dvd, a kitty outfit, a pack of 4 Skippy Jon Jones board books (amazing!), a big stuffed bear, a stuffed tigger, and a stuffed lion toy.  We got to take some family pictures in front of the Christmas tree and pictures of each person holding Embry too.  She got one outfit change midday because we had 2 'Baby's First Christmas' outfits...she was so cute dressed in her Christmas outfits.  We looked through old pictures from the basement later on in the day and Embry definitely has Tony's forehead.  So all in all she's doing well although she has a really nasty diaper rash that we're working on getting rid of.  From the pictures I looked up online and talking to the on call nurse today it appears that it's a yeast infection.   I feel so bad for her, it's got to hurt a lot!  Hopefully it will go away soon.  

Have I mentioned that diapers are insanely expensive?! 

Week 5

5 Weeks old on 12/19/08

(sorry can't rotate)

This week we flew to Maryland to visit with Tony's family.  Embry was a perfect angel on the 3.5 hour plane ride.  They had a bunch of extra seats on the plane so they let us take her on in her carseat and put it in the window seat while I sat in the middle and Tony on the aisle.  She woke up once to eat and feeding her was a little complicated but we managed.  The one part of the trip that wasn't particularly great was going through security.  It would have been nice if someone could have told me what was supposed to go where and how instead of letting me try and guess, but whatever.  It just took a lot longer than it should have, but we survived.  

She's been pretty well behaved since we've been here.  We took her out to Target and Kohls for a couple of hours and she slept through that whole experience as well.  I was worried about how cold she would be here, especially at night, but at target they had some big snowsuit type things on clearance so I got 2 of them for the nighttime.  They're newborn size, but still big.  She keeps getting her arms and legs stuck in the body part.  This morning when I picked her up she had her hand coming out the neck hole, she's so cute.  

I'm hoping that soon she'll smile at me.  I'd really like to get a pic of her with Santa while we're here.  She seems to take a lot more notice of people now.  She'll look you in the face and I kinda think she recognizes who I am...at least as the person with the milk haha.  She's spitting up a lot more.  Like today she threw up her whole meal two separate times, not sure what that's about, but if it persists I'll call the pediatrician and see what he says.  

Week 4

12-12-08
4 Weeks Old

Only 5 more pounds to go before I reach my pre-prepregnancy weight! So far I’ve lost 26 lbs, woo-hoo! I can actually zip and button all of my old jeans, but if I do that then I have the exact definition of a ‘muffin top.’ So if I want to wear them I just leave the button undone and put on a belt and that seems to work out pretty well. I can definitely tell that my hips have gotten wider though, I wonder if they eventually go back to normal or not.

I had my post partum checkup with the OB yesterday. I wasn’t exactly sure what the protocol was for that appt, but basically she asked how I was feeling and took a look and did a small internal exam. The exam part I was a little afraid of, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, just a little at opening from the tear. She said it all looked like it was healing well and that I still have a few stitches left (one dissolved last week) and it would be ok if they came out now because the tear is healed. So that means that it’s ok for me to take baths and I asked if I could go swimming and in a hot tub and she said both would be fine. I asked her when we could start trying to have another kid and she said it would be unlikely that I’d get pregnant in the first 6 months with exclusive breastfeeding (although not impossible as we all know), so basically we can start trying right away. I’m not sure if we will, but we’re definitely not going to prevent anything from happening. I didn’t take Embry along because Tony was able to work from home and watch her since I was going to the office location that takes forever. Well my appt was at 9:20 and I was in a room by 9:35…so how come that couldn’t have happened while I was pregnant? So weird. Since I didn’t bring Embry I figured my doctor would have asked why I didn’t bring her or at least if I had a picture I could show her or something, but nope, she didn’t even take notice…that kind of bothered me.

Embry is doing good. She just recently (as in, yesterday) started drooling. I thought that didn’t happen till later. As you may know, I have a strong aversion to spit so we’ll see how this goes haha. She’s sleeping for longer periods at night now. Generally she would get up roughly every 3 hours to be changed and fed, but last night she was fed at 9:30 and then didn’t wake up again until 2:30. I can tell that she is more aware of things around her now too. She seems to be smiling a little bit more, but that’s mainly when she’s farting or pooping. Grandma JoAnn and Grandpa Don got to babysit her for the first time on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday they came up and watched her while Tony and I went to Young Marrieds and then they spent the night at our house and the next day I got to run a bunch of errands while they took care of Embry…it was great! My mom also helped out with some house chores that had been let go which really helped with my stress level.

I tried some of Embry’s warm 0-3 month clothes on her the other day because on my scale it says she’s 9 lbs now, to see what to bring for the trip to Maryland and holy cow, they’re huge! There was no way I could put her in those clothes because the pants are literally about 2-3 inches too long…it’s ridiculous. So when I ran errands on Thursday I picked up some long sleeved newborn clothes and some newborn pants/leggings which were from Grandma and Grandpa Nehs as her Christmas present. When I was at the store I was looking at them and thinking how they looked too small, then I got them home and tried them on her and they’re still big. Amazing. Anyhow, I don’t think she’ll grow out of them before our trip is over, but I’ll bring some of the warm 0-3 month stuff too. A girl at the Dr’s office had her 6 week old baby along and said she still didn’t fit into the 0-3 month stuff, so I’m thinking Embry will have a similar situation. Also, we had issues with those newborn diapers that I bought from Walgreens. First of all, they were too big around the waist and even if you pulled them really tight they would fall down in the back. Then the first day I put her in them, I pulled them really tight cuz I didn’t want poo coming out the back and then apparently they were much too tight around the legs because after I was feeding her, I looked down and her little legs had turned all blue. Not good! Then we made sure to check the leg openings to make sure they weren’t too tight, but the other problem was that they didn’t have a layer of mesh inside (like most diapers do) so the poo and pee would just sit right on her skin until the diaper was changed. This caused some pretty nasty diaper rash, which made me feel really bad, so we had to go buy more of the newborn pampers sensitive swaddlers. Diapers are darn expensive! I’d highly recommend the sensitive swaddlers though, they’re better than any of the other diapers we’ve tried. We have a box of size 1 which supposedly fits babies 8-14 lbs, but those are way too big on her so far.

Embry did great on her first long car ride up to Phoenix today! She slept the whole way there and back, such a good traveler. She got 3 dr Seuss books and ‘The Hippopotamus Ate the Teacher’ from Grandma Dorothea. Speaking of traveling, I’m nervous about packing her stuff for our trip to Maryland because there’s a lot of stuff she’s going to need and I’ve never packed for a baby before, so it will be a learning experience!

Even More Pics

Album #7
Album #8
Album #9

Week 3

Embry 3 Weeks Old on 12/5/08

Tony went back to work on Monday. The first day was fantastic, I got a ton of stuff done because Embry slept for like 5 hours straight. The other days were fine as well, but I didn't realize my baby pooped or cried as much as she does. I guess it all hits you when you're home alone and that's all you can focus on. We still haven't put her in the nursery at night, she's sleeping in the bassinet part of the play yard in our bedroom. It just seems easier than walking down the hall 3-4 times a night. Plus there's no tv in the nursery, so I'd have a very difficult time staying awake in the middle of the night.

I took Embry to MOPS on Tuesday. All was well until I took her out of her infant car seat to go up to the front and show her off. She was ok for a little while after that with me just holding her and then she became fussified. So I spent about half of mops walking around with her and taking her into the 'cry room' to nurse her...it was not the most fun I've ever had. Then we ran some errands and I gave up about halfway through because it's really hard for me to lift her in her carseat in and out of the car and then carry it around. It's easier when there's a shopping cart readily available, but still difficult to get the carseat out of the car...I'm not sure I'm going to be able to leave the house with her alone if she gets any bigger, which is kind of inevitable.

I took her to the doctor on Wed because she seemed to be congested starting around Thanksgiving. I gave it some time to pass and it didn't so then I called the dr to see if I should bring her in or just let it go and he said to bring her in. In the meantime he scared the heck out of me by saying that if it seemed like she was having trouble breathing then I should take her to the ER. So, went to the appt, turns out she has a cold and there's nothing I can do for her but I'm just thankful it wasn't RSV. Big news is that as of Wed she weighs 8lbs 3oz! We completely missed the 7lb range all together! Apparently she is eating very well, so no worries there.

Speaking of eating, it's impossible to get her to open her mouth very wide which is painful for me and she's taken to what I call 'snacking.' She'll eat good for about 10 minutes and then just stop and move her head away. I'll try to get her to keep eating because I know she'll be hungry in an hour and then I'll be ticked, but she won't have any of that. I've decided that she can eat for as long as she wants, but I won't be feeding her again until about 3 hours has passed. Hopefully she will figure out that maybe she should eat for more than 10 minutes at a time this way. Bleh.

In other news, I'd like to get some sleep. There is soooooo much to do and I can't possibly waste valuable daytime sleeping when Embry is sleeping and then at night I pretty much, well, let's not talk about the nighttime. She's a good sleeper at night, so I can't complain there. Let's just say that I need some sleep, end of story.

Everything is coming up so fast...
12/13: Christmas in Phx with Tony's Family
12/14: Christmas party at our house
12/16: Fly to Maryland

HELP!