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!