The hardest most wonderful 3 weeks.

I guess it doesn't matter how much preparation you do, or how much you read, or how many classes you go to, you just can't really be ready for  the experience of birth and then having a newborn. How can anyone explain the combination of intense love and joy when you look at her face and the complete misery that your body is in at the same time? The soreness and the hormones and the emotional stress and fear of what you've gotten yourself into, there was no way I could have been prepared for any of that. Our lives are in a million pieces, and the pieces will never fit back together the way they did before. We're starting over, building a new life, as three people, as a family. We're finding ourselves grieving over the loss of our old life, while being excited about our new one. The word we find ourselves using the most the last couple of weeks is overwhelming.

one day old, blood test

I'm already amazed by how much she has grown. Every time I pick her up to feed her she seems chubbier and sturdier and just a little bit longer. She's starting to have funny little habits, that maybe only I will notice, because we have so much intimate time together while I feed her. She gets annoyed if I mess with her feet while she's sucking. She likes to kick her little knee up to rest on my other breast while she's eating. She has a fake cry that she pulls out when she's hungry, but she doesn't seem to want to put in the effort of a real cry. She's started having an after-meal stretch which Josh loves.

4 days old

We're finding ourselves sliding into a routine, which I imagine will keep evolving as she grows and changes. She sleeps in 3 hour stretches at night, and usually goes right back to sleep after her feeding. Josh wakes up when she fusses and hands her to me, and after we're done he changes her diaper and soothes her back to sleep. Her wakeful times are mostly quiet, while she stares at whatever seems interesting to her at the moment, mostly the ceiling fan. She's such a sweet, mellow baby.

Great Grandma and Grandpa

First bath

Week one, tiny baby

Sleep style

Josh rocks the Moby wrap

 We had a week 3 photo shoot on the red couch yesterday, and caught some good faces.