The First Week

Wow! The first week has gone by so quickly! Sorry for lack of blogging and pictures, but it just hasn't fit into the day for me for some reason.

So here's how the first week has been for all of us.

Nicholas's birthday Thursday was really good as was Friday in the hospital. I felt pretty good and he slept a lot. I got a little more rest in the hospital than I had gotten with Hannah, but it was frustrating that when they did bring him into me at night to eat, he'd just fall asleep after a few minutes. It made feeding time last like an hour and then he came back again two hours after that. So sleep was for like 1-2 hours at a time, but I guess that's pretty good.

My hospital stay seemed to go very fast, but it was a good experience. All of the nurses at the hospital were great and helpful. I really enjoyed both of my stays there very much. I was up and moving around just fine, took a shower, got dressed in my own jammies and recovered pretty well. Tony & Hannah spent a lot of time with me in the evening which was nice. We didn't have too many visitors, which was also just fine. The low-key two days were just right.

Saturday morning, I woke up and started to get myself ready and all of a sudden broke completely down into tears! I'm sure it was all a hormonal mess because I kept asking myself what's wrong and since I didn't know, that made me cry even harder! My pediatrician walked in on that mess, which seemed to make him look a little uncomfortable, but he discharged Nicholas with no real issues. He said he looked great and they'd see me in two weeks. The only thing was to pay attention to his coloring. He had a bit of jaundice, but not at the levels to put him under the billi-lites, but they said day 4 the levels usually peak, so we just had to keep an eye on it.

I called Tony still crying which I'm sure made him a little nervous too, but finally, I got a grip and that all stopped. My discharge nurse was a bit of a scatter brain - she was the only one I wasn't that crazy about during the stay, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Tony and Hannah came up after swimming lessons and we hung out the rest of the morning and early afternoon.

Around 3:00, we got Nicholas ready, dressing him in the same outfit that Hannah came home in and then they came in to cut off our security bracelets and sent us home.

Here we are just before leaving.

We headed home and Hannah napped, Tony hung out, Nicholas was sleeping and I cleaned. Yep, I cleaned! I'm nuts, but I needed to do it. I put all our stuff away, straightened up, did laundry and that sort of thing. We just hung out trying to figure out what our new roles were all about the rest of the evening. We were disappointed that our swing didn't seem to work with him in it, so we have to get a new one.

Sunday was low key in the morning and then we all went on our first outing with two children later in the day to the store. We got some groceries and a few sleepers and looked for a new swing. Both Walmart and Target didn't have much to choose from on swings and I was a little sticker shocked that they were between $100-125! For some reason, I thought they were cheaper. We held off and decided to maybe hit Babies R Us later in the week. Here's the little man with his cuteness at his new home....I think he'll like it here!

Monday, we had our first photo shoot to try to get a picture for announcements. It's hard to do that with a sleeping baby! I don't think I got quite the right picture today, although he did take some cute ones!

Then I had the bright idea to hit our second hand store for a swing and made out great! I got one in super shape for $42 and picked up a few outfits for him too since we don't have a lot of boy clothes yet. I took him into daycare when I picked Hannah up at the end of the day. It was so cute when I pulled in the driveway. All of the kids were standing at the window watching for me to come in with the baby and then stood there in awe of him! It was really cute. They were all so excited to see the new baby! Aunt Dawn, Uncle Jack, Kendal & John came over to visit Monday night.

Tuesday, Nicholas and I just hung out all day. He loves his new swing! I love how you can imagine that these smiles are because he's happy (who says it's gas?)

I got a little cleaning in, check email from work, get myself ready for the day and took a nap in the afternoon for a while. We attempted another photo shoot which went better, but he still was so sleepy! I may use one of these for announcements, so I won't post here just yet. Around 5, I headed to pick up Hannah. She loves to be by him and this is how she sat until dinner was ready! I asked her if she wanted me to move him out of her way, and she said, "no, mommy, he's fine right by me like this".

She got to hold him for a while too. She's pretty good at it!

It's Tony's late work night, so I got home, made dinner, cleaned up, got Hannah bathed and put to bed all by myself. It's a lot of work, but since Nicholas is pretty low maintenance, it is very manageable.

Wednesday was pretty much the same. Tony did pick Hannah up for me last night and brought home Boston Market for dinner to make the evening easier.

Nicholas sleeps all the time! He is up about every 3 hours to eat - like clockwork. He's a great eater and HATES to have his diaper and clothes changed. My real milk came in on Sunday and he seems to be doing fine on it, not much spit up. The hardest thing is keeping him awake to eat long enough to last 3 hours. He lets some serious wet farts!!! I've been peed on at least 4 times and have learned that you need to open his diaper and leave it there for a few minutes to wait for the fountain of pee!! I went through that lesson with about 3 clean diapers - he peed just as I was putting the new one on and had to change it again! Tony got sprayed for the first time last night! It's pretty funny, but has become quite a game to get the changing done without the mishaps! He's been smiling while he sleeps and making cute little faces and a few little noises. I think his days and nights are a little mixed up because the longest he's been awake at one time is from 11 pm to almost 12:30 and then he's up at 1:00 to eat, so the past two nights I've resorted to letting him sleep with me on the couch after the 4:00 feeding to get some decent sleep. He doesn't do very well in his basinette yet, which is hard because I don't want to start a habit of sleeping with me, but to get some sleep right now, we'll do what it takes! He's so good and I'm so fortunate so far that he's not like Hannah was as a newborn. I wonder how long this sleepyhead stage will last? For now, I just soak in his cuteness and let him sleep. I'm totally falling in love with this little guy - he's just so sweet!

Big sister Hannah is doing great. She thinks he's pretty cool and likes to hold him. She thinks it's funny when he makes his "little baby noises" as she calls them! We make sure to spend special time with her to play and ensure her that she's still so very special to us. It's kind of cool that we have a little boy now so Hannah will always be our only special little girl!!!! I love that she gets to have that title all to herself!

Tony's doing well too. The new daddy thing came much easier to him this time around, although he's still a worry-wart about everything! That's just him and I try to reassure him everything is fine. He's super helpful with Hannah and holds Nicholas most of the evenings since he's at work all day. He's going to be even busier with work since they did a major layoff on Monday. Thank God Tony wasn't part of the cuts! But they cut the staff almost in half, so he's super crazy there and will probably have two late nights now.

I'm doing really well too. Healing up very nicely. I'm a bit tired, but I'm sure I do most of that to myself. I should rest a little more than I do, but so far, I rest when I know I need to. My back is sort of achy still, but I try to stretch real good every day to work out the kinks. I've had trouble breathing a little since giving birth. I had that sinus infection last week and after the epidural, I wasn't able to get any good coughs in to help relieve the mucous. That's slowly getting better too. I'm finally feeling like I can get a productive cough again and the sinus infection seems to be gone now. I was pleasantly surprised to have lost about 10 pounds at the hospital. I weighed the same when I came home with Hannah which was so frustrating! I've lost another 5 pounds since Saturday, so it's encouraging that it's coming off easier so far - at least the first part of it. Unfortunately, I got some big ol' stretch marks across my tummy - hope they fade!!!

So, we're great! We're so in love with Nicholas and we're just so grateful he's here with us and has made our family complete!