It's hard to believe that Ashley's already 18 days old!! Granted, 6 of those days were in the hospital and I was in a daze so I don't remember them very well. But here we are - home, healthy, and doing just fine. I'm sorry I haven't updated the blog much as I know there are lots of people checking it regularly for updates. Thank you!! We are doing well and truly appreciate all your messages - we just haven't had time to write you back!!
We had a check up this week and in the week that we'd had her home she gained just shy of a full pound (we brought her home a pretty much birth weight since she had maintained it due to IV's) and has already grown an inch since birth! The first week home she pretty much just slept. I think the first week of her life was so overwhelming she needed a week to recover!! It took her a few days to not flinch when we'd touch her because she was so used to having touch or movement mean someone was going to do something to her. Her feet were really sensitive for a while because that's where they did the blood draws. With all the sleeping in the first week home I was beginning to wonder what her personality was going to be since the feistyness that was there in the very beginning wasn't so obvious...well, she's still feisty!! She will go from zero to 60 in less than 2-3 seconds but thankfully she will also go 60 to zero in about 5. :) Most of the time! She usually just needs to be held and/or swaddled and she's good to go. She loves her vibrating chair - so much so that I went on Craiglist and got a bassinet that also has vibration! Unfortunately last night it started making a crazy screeching noise so we couldn't use that function last night. But when it comes to getting your baby to sleep, you'll do almost anything, even buy more baby equipment!! Now to get the other one sold....That's the one nice thing with knowing we won't have any more babies - as Ashley grows out of things we don't have to hang onto them!!
Katelynn has done really well with being a Big Sister. There hasn't been any animosity towards Ashley, which I was really worried about, having heard so many stories of older siblings wanting to "give the baby back." She loves to show her off to anyone that we meet or that comes to the house and she loves to show her things. "Hey Baby Ashley, look at my toy....Baby Ashley you want to see my toy again? Look at this Ashley, look at my toy! Mommy, can I show her my toy again?" We've had to ban her from touching her if we're not holding her after a slight car seat rocking incident. :( I try to encourage her to hug and kiss her as much as she wants to - as long as one of us is holding her!! She loves to dance for her and sing her songs, it's very cute! The only one not loving it so much is the dog. She won't sleep in our room anymore. :)
Kevin and I are doing pretty well considering. Kevin went back to work this week and I think we did pretty good. Two out of the four nights Ashley did pretty good sleep wise, the other two...not so much. We haven't yet figured out who does what during the night, so during the week Kevin helped get her to sleep and then I got up when she did. Knowing her schedule will keep changing for the next few weeks/months, we just have to be flexible! We've been blessed by friends & family coming off and on bringing meals, helping to take care of the house, and spend some 1:1 time with Katelynn. I think I'm healing fine, I've never had the chance to recover "normally" from a c-section so I don't know how I should be feeling! I do think I over did it a bit this week, as I'm getting sore, so today is going to be all about rest!! (after I get the blog updated of course!) But with Katelynn at Nama's for the weekend, Ashley asleep, Daddy working on the patio cover, I think rest is just what the doctor ordered!!
