Oh My Gish: 3 Weeks In

I said I'd be back from time to time, so here I am! We are 3 weeks into this grand adventure and I wanted to stop into the blog to give everyone an update on how we are doing. In summary, we are doing really well. I thought I'd address some FAQs to begin. Here are some things you may or may not be wondering about:

1. My Recovery
At 3 weeks, I'm pretty much recovered. I was in a good amount of pain from my episiotomy for about a week. The 2nd and 3rd weeks have been much better. I'm now sitting comfortably without use of a medical donut or pillow pet (judge me if you want to). I never took pain meds other than motrin. My body was not sore at all from pushing because I only pushed a handful of times. My arms, however, were sore initially from lifting my 7 lb baby (guess I should have worked out more...). I have about 3 more weeks before my uterus is back to normal size and before my body has officially recovered, medically speaking. In terms of weight loss, I didn't gain much and most of it came out with the baby. While the scale might read the same thing it did when I got pregnant, I don't look "uniform ready". I can't WAIT to get back out there and start running. I'm already looking forward to my first post-baby half marathon come March. If you told me I'd ever "look forward" to running 10 months ago, I would have laughed so hard my beer would have come out of my nose.

2. Sleep
While elusive, it has been better than I imagined. I don't know if I imagined a worst case scenario, have a good baby, or maybe a combination of both. Sure, we wake up every 2-3 hours to change diapers and eat, but she has really gotten the point that nighttime means we go back to sleep when we are done. (At least for now... until we hit a growth spurt or sleep regression or whatever.)

3. Breast Feeding
This deserves a post of its own but I'll never have the time to write it. Breast feeding is HARD. It is hard for many different reasons. Just because you have a good milk supply (read: me) doesn't mean it's going to be easy. For us, it has been difficult because Abby has a tongue-tie that I refuse to clip (google it) and therefore her latch is less than stellar. Which means a lot of nipple pain for me. We are working through it slowly, getting better each time and using a TON of lanolin. I wanted to cry with happiness when her pediatrician commended us on her weight gain. I was so happy that my efforts had been working!! We did get the go ahead from the ped to try to pump/feed from a bottle, and she took it with no issues. I wanted to cry with happiness again. Like I said. One day- no- one feeding at a time.

4. Postpartum
I was shocked that I didn't get the baby blues. This is not to say there have been no tears. Breastfeeding is frustrating, can be painful and add on lack of sleep and there will be plenty of tears! I have a GREAT support network of mom-friends who were checking in with me for the first couple of weeks just in case. I appreciate each of them so much <3

5. Help
My Mom was here for the first two weeks and it was awesome. She kept hot meals on the table, did the dishes, laundry, took care of the dogs, and generally ran the household so that Joey could go back to work and I could focus on my baby. We were really lucky to have her here. We love you, Grandmom!

And of course Joey has been an amazing father since day 1. He is so sweet with our little girl it just melts my heart. He holds her, talks to her, sings to her (ridiculous songs but whatever) and has been so helpful and supportive with getting me through every day, good or bad. We are both super lucky to have him. Even though he's working, he's taking great care of us both when he gets home. He is going to take his "paternity leave" once my maternity leave is over so that we can prolong her starting at daycare. We love you, Daddy! :)

6. The Dogs
They have been interested in Abby from day one. Doc immediately accepted her as part of the pack. It took Chloe a little longer, but now she thinks Abby is her baby. They both are uneasy when someone other than Joey or I are holding her. They sniff her every time she comes back into the house. I am really pleased with how well they are doing with her. Although as a victim of a childhood dog bite myself, I'll continue to be really careful about their interactions with her (and vice versa) as she gets older.

7. Abigail
She is a good baby! Her temperament is sweet. She is easy going and relatively easy to soothe. She takes a pacifier and is trying oh so hard to catch her elusive thumb. She can hold her head up already! She loves her baby swing. She likes to grab at her face and ears. Her umbilical cord stump finally fell out today and she has an innie! (We think?) She has a freckle/birthmark on her right arm. Her hair is light brown and her eyes are blue/slate colored. We hope they stay that way.... there is a 25% chance they will! Go little 'b's! She is very alert and active. We have seen a few smiles but no way of knowing if they were "real" or not. But they are really cute :) We do call her Abby. I have this thing about nicknames though, so I make sure to call her Abigail as well. We also call her lots of other things. My current go-to is Beastie (like as in "Hello, Beastie") when she's hungry. Except she's much cuter than the Kraken ;)

8. Other
Since Joey is back to work, our basic days consist of lots of feeding, diapers, and thank GOD for the Simpsons marathon... I have found it helpful to set goals for myself each day (today I will: shower, bathe the baby, go to the Starbucks drive thru). Even if they are silly, small goals, it's important to me to feel like I accomplished something each day. I also try to nap in the afternoons if I can. This helps with crankiness/fatigue at night time. Maternity leave is flying by but I'm glad I chose to do the full 3 months. I can't believe it's September already!! Almost time to break out the Fall decorations!!

Since we haven't really been leaving the house, Joey has become more stir crazy and decided it was time to re-do the screened porch. He worked so hard over the weekend on phase 1 (woodwork, painting) and phase 2 (electrical work/tile floor) are next. Phase 3 is decorating and that's my job. To say I'm excited to decorate another room is an understatement. Hopefully I can find time to update you guys on this project. Finding time to do anything is difficult because the windows between feedings are short. It's easy to forget that I was planning to do something.

Whew! Well, there was a little snapshot into our lives for the past 3 weeks!! I will be back hopefully to do her 1 month update in about a week or so.

And now, please enjoy some pictures of our little babe: