I’ll circle back to Lauren’s birth story and hospital stay soon, but I wanted to write up a little bit about the last week while it’s still fresh and new in my mind. I know from experience that the details will blur together with the passage of time and the decrease in consistent sleep and I don’t want to lose them forever.
Lauren made her appearance early last Saturday morning, and we headed home from the hospital as early as we could on Sunday morning. As soon as I walked in the door of our home with her, she was the star of the show and has been ever since. All of her siblings are constantly honing in on her wherever she is in the house. They want to be close to her, to watch her sleep and stretch, to hear her elephanty noises and tiny sighs. They gaze at her admiringly, note new expressions and cheer when she holds their fingers. They seem to sense how fleeting these early days are and my heart’s happy when I see them soak her in. Spending time with Lauren is as close as any of us can get to heaven right now.
Who She Is
The more I get to know my kiddos as they’ve grown, the more I realize they truly came to our family whole and completely themselves. The same personality they had as babies generally persists into toddlerhood and beyond. (One notable exception is Josie who screamed for her first year and then totally mellowed out. I’m still not sure what happened there… )
So it’s with a lot of interest that I watch Lauren and imagine what the coming years will bring. So far, she is a people person. She will completely relax when she’s got human contact, and fuss when she thinks she’s alone. She’s a generally calm kiddo who will just be awake and watchful when she’s not sleeping. She’s quick to smile when she’s dozing and hears me talk to her or hears a sibling laugh.
She’s got one adorable dimple that I discovered several days after she was born.
Sleep!
There are few more important topics when you have a newborn in the house. Lauren was tricky in the hospital because she kept spitting up and choking on colostrum, which would wake us both up in a panic. But since she’s been home she’s rarely spit up and seems to spend 2 blocks of time between feedings each day awake and the rest of her time pretty much sleeping soundly. Since she gained nearly a pound between discharge and her doctor’s mid-week checkup, I decided to let her stretch out her nighttime feedings. She’s waking up once in 8 or 9 hours, nursing and going back to bed. So basically she’s doing 4 and 5 hour stretches at night (2.5 to 3 during the day) and I’m loving it while it lasts.
My Recovery
Of course the sleep is helping lots, but I feel like my recovery has been a bit more challenging than with the last couple of babies. It took me a good four days to stop feeling weak and dizzy, and I’m still not back to my normal energy level. I had lots of fatigue during this pregnancy before I started supplementing with iron, and I wonder if blood loss at delivery played a role.
I am doing a better job this time taking it easy but part of that feels mandatory rather than precautionary. I have no stitches or birth complications to deal with, and engorgement lasted just a couple of days, but I’m still choosing rest rather than joining the rest of the family on excursions and activities. My dad took the kids on romps in the woods, to Enchanted Forest and to the Space and Aviation museum, and I happily waved them on their way and took some naps while they were gone.
I suspect the biggest difference was I was much less fit going into this labor than I have been in the past.
Curveballs
Our washing machine drain hose popped out on Monday night and flooded our laundry room, pouring dirty water down through our ceiling into our Great Room. We have a drain pan and drain installed under the washing machine but a good amount of liquid missed the pan so we had quite a clean up job . Miraculously, all dried out just fine and a few days later the washing machine was back in working order with a more secure drain hose.
Also, Josie, who has to this point been the world’s easiest two year old, has decided this week that she is going to make up for lost time and cause some toddler mayhem. It’s really minor compared to what we’ve had from her older siblings at this age, but it caught us off guard because it’s so out of character for her. The first time she threw herself on the ground and wept and whined, we just sort of looked at each other and blinked. A tantrum? What?
Comings and Goings
Scott’s sister and nephew came down for a visit Saturday and Sunday and it was perfect timing to meet Lauren and spoil our older kids with attention. My dad stayed through Thursday, and my sister-in-law Meghan is coming out tomorrow with her sisters for a quick stopover. The weekend before Lauren arrived we had Scott’s brother and his family stay for a couple of nights. All this to say, we’re feeling loved despite living in a different state from both of our families, and we’re also feeling grateful we included a guest bedroom in our house plan.
Siblings
This time has been so sweet for my kids. I’ve seen each of them bond with Lauren in their own way.
They’ve also had lots of time to just hang out with each other with less supervision/oversight/interference from me.
These kids were Bean burritos and were patiently waited for me to come out of my room after I laid Lauren down for a nap:
And this was the scene that awaited me outside my bedroom door after one of her feedings:
My kids always love looking through our blog books and reading about the funny things they said or the adventures our family has had together. But after the birth of a baby I think they’re especially drawn to these books. They want to hear their birth stories, read how excited we were to welcome them into the family, and see how much they’ve grown.
In Summary
This is my view from my chair in the morning when I feed Lauren and it’s pretty much how I feel about life right now. Building a house was hard in many ways, as was this pregnancy, but both were tremendously positive and privileged events in my life as well. It’s nice to pause, catch my breath and appreciate this new chapter:
This last photo just turned up on my phone one day. 🙂
Lauren has quite a life ahead of her in this family!
