one month

It's hard to believe our little girl is one month old already!  She's already changed and grown so much!  Today at church people were commenting on how little she is, but to me she's so big!  She hasn't been to the doctor since her two week appointment and won't be going again until she's two months, so Grant and I did some at-home measurements to figure out about how big she is now.  She's packing on the pounds, which you can definitely tell by her chunky cheeks and rolly arms and legs :)

-Emily is sleeping much better.  On good nights, she sleeps 5+ hours and then another 2 or 3.  On not-so-good nights, she is up every hour (thankfully, we haven't had one of those nights in a while).  Most of the time, she's up every 3 hours, which means I'm up twice during the night.  It's usually a little hard getting her to go down in the evenings.  Maybe she can sense that it's her "real" bedtime because she fights going to sleep.  She'll sleep great if she's being held or in bed with us, but as soon as we put her in her bed she wakes up and starts crying.  I read that the key is to put them down when they're first showing signs that they're tired-- when they're sleepy, but still awake.  I didn't think this would work since she doesn't even like going to bed when she's already asleep, so why would she let us put her down if she's still awake?  The first night we tried it, it worked perfectly!  Whenever we're able to get the timing right and put her down before she's overtired she sleeps great.  We're still working on perfecting this new trick.

-We were hesitant to give her a pacifier for a while, but once we did it made a huge difference.  If there's ever a time when she's being fussy and nothing else seems to work, a pacifier always does the trick.  The only problem is that she likes to hold it in place with her hand, but usually her hand ends up knocking it out of her mouth and that upsets her.

-Last week Emily went through a growth spurt which meant she was eating all the time and was a lot fussier than normal.  I was very discouraged for a while, but thankfully it only lasted a few days and then things got better.  She's still fussy occasionally, but usually being held or her pacifier makes her happy again.

-Emily loves to cuddle!  She'd much rather sleep in someone's arms than in her crib.  She'll let anyone hold her!

-She's not a fan of tummy time.  She'll usually tolerate it for a little bit and then decide she doesn't want to deal with it anymore and get fussy.  Most times she just lays there until it's over, but occasionally she gets some exercise by moving her legs around and lifting her head up.  She almost rolled over the other day!  We've been trying to get her to do it again, but I guess she just hasn't felt like it.

-We're so glad that she likes bathtime!  She wasn't a fan at first, when we had to give her sponge baths, but luckily her cord stump fell off after just a week so we didn't have to do too many of those.  Since she's been bathing in her little tub, she's been a champ.  She's perfect the whole time until it's time to wash her hair.  I think that part scares her.  But we'll take what we can get and we're grateful she's pretty easy for most of it.

-We see lots of smiles from Emily when she's sleeping or gassy.  We've even seen some smaller smiles from her when she's looking at us but no obvious big ones yet.  I can tell she wants to sometimes, though.  We can't wait until she starts smiling more!

We just can't get enough of this little girl!  She brings so much fun and love into our family and we're so glad to have her!

Emily Kate

It's hard to believe that our little girl turned 2 weeks old yesterday.  In some ways it feels like she was born just yesterday and in others it feels like we've had her for so long.  She's already grown and changed so much.  We had her two week checkup at the doctor yesterday and she's now 8 lbs. 11.5 oz.  That's almost a whole pound up from her birthweight!  The doctor said they just hope for her to be back to her birthweight at this point (since they lose a little after birth) so it's fantastic that she's already gained so much!  It almost makes me a little sad knowing that she's growing so much.  I don't want her to grow up too fast!

Two weeks ago was a very special day for our family.  I was over a week past my due date so the doctor decided to induce me.  I thought since I knew what was coming I would have a hard time sleeping, but I actually slept great.  It was a little bit bittersweet knowing our lives were about to change so much.  We were so excited for Emily to come, but it was also crazy thinking about how Grant and I would never be just the two of us again.  He gave me a blessing the night before so we were ready and calm about everything that was coming.

On Thursday, September 20th, we woke up at 5 and called the hospital.  I was a little worried that they would tell us to try back later since it kept getting pushed back and eventually cancelled on Tuesday. But, fortunately, they told us to come on in at 5:30.  When we got there we had to do some logistical stuff, so they didn't end up starting the Pitocin until around 6:40.  The Pitocin made the contractions start coming more regularly, but they still weren't unbearable.  At 8:00, my doctor came in and broke my water and that made the contractions come with more frequency and intensity. I ended up getting an epidural around 10:00.  The epidural itself was awful, but it made everything a lot easier once I had it.  The nurses continued to come in and check me and they were very surprised at how quickly everything was progressing, especially since it was my first baby.  I kept having Grant change the temperature in the room because I felt hot, but I was shivering uncontrollably.  Finally, one of the nurses said that it's normal to shake that much and it wasn't because I was cold.  That made me feel better.  At 12:45, I was fully dilated and effaced so they had me start pushing.  I only did a couple of times until they told me to stop so the baby didn't get there before the doctor did!  It took them a while to reach my doctor and she ended up having to leave a surgery to come.  By the time she walked in the door, it was only 7 minutes before Emily arrived!  I couldn't really feel anything because of the epidural, so when Grant told me to look down I didn't really know what'd I'd see, but I looked down and there was Emily!  She arrived at 1:09, just 3 minutes before Grant's guess.  They laid her on my chest for a little bit and Grant ended up cutting the cord, even though he insisted beforehand that he wouldn't do it.  While she was laying on my chest, I just tried to take in everything.  She was pretty purple, which made her red hair obvious at the time.  I noticed that she had Grant's mouth and my big eyes and I even noticed a hint of a dimple.  They took her to clean her up and do some tests.  She passed all of her tests and she's happy and healthy!

The recovery process was actually a lot harder than labor for me.  When they first had me get up, the epidural hadn't completely worn off and I almost passed out on the way to the bathroom.  I also tore and had to have an episiotomy so I was sore from that and the stitches.  Luckily, we haven't really had any problems with breastfeeding.  Emily and I both caught on fast.  The only issue we're having is that once or twice a day she likes to "cluster" feed, where she won't eat very much, but wants to eat several times in the course of a few hours.  At first it felt like she was eating all the time, but she's gotten better about eating more at most of her feedings and going longer in between.  She's now usually only up twice during the nights, which is so much better!  The first night home from the hospital she was up all the time and wouldn't sleep in her crib so Grant and I had to hold her the whole time.  My arms started hurting so bad! But now she's sleeping well and eating well.  The fact that she's gained so much weight tells me that she's getting plenty of food!

While we're pretty exhausted and still new at the parenting thing, we're loving every minute of it!  It's so fun knowing that we made her and seeing ourselves in her looks and personality. Sometimes I feel like I could just sit and stare at her for hours!
Here are some of our favorite pictures of our little girl:

I like how this one shows off her red hair :)

her favorite way to sleep is with her arms up by her head like this

We sure do love this girl and we're very excited to have her as a part of our family!  We can't wait to watch her grow and develop her own little personality!