Bailey Grace

This post is fairly long, but I wanted to update everyone on how everything is going!!

Bailey was born April 1st at 8:43 a.m. at 6 lbs 8 oz and 18 inches long. She is such a tiny little thing! She is doing so well. She lost a few ounces in the hospital and is already back to birth weight, which the nurse said was fantastic at Bailey's follow-up appointment yesterday. She was slightly jaundice in the hospital, but her level dropped already so she is out of the woods. She does look a little tan, but Jacob's skin was darkened too for the first few weeks and then went back to normal.

The coolest thing is that she was born on her Aunt Sharla's birthday (my sister)! This is a running theme in our family. I share a birthday with my grandmother, Dan shares one with his grandfather, my grandfather shares one with one of my cousins, an aunt and cousin on my mom's side share a birthday, as do two cousins on my dad's side. What are the odds?!!

She is so far a great and calm baby. She has had a couple of challenging nights where she wants to eat a lot and stay awake, but I'm hopeful this will straighten out soon. The nurse recommended that she sleep in her car seat for a little while because she has some nasal congestion and spits up some after eating. She was sleeping great in her moses basket, but she needs to be elevated for awhile. She is a great little nurser. I am so lucky with both of my children because they both latched on immediately and just knew what to do. I'm also lucky that my body responds well to nursing, maybe a little too well!! I am already freezing milk because she can't keep up with my production, which is great because I really want to stockpile the freezer in case of emergencies.

Jacob is handling being a big brother pretty well. He visited us twice in the hospital, but only lasted about 10 minutes because he was into everything and really didn't understand what was going on. He set off an alarm in my room because he hit something on the wall! When we brought her home Saturday morning, he pointed to her and said "baby" and then preceded to prod and pat her face and head. He thought that her car seat was a toy and almost rocked her out of it!! Other than that, he has no interest in her. Dan is doing a great job taking care of him while I heal and take care of Bailey. I really miss my Jacob-time and can't wait to pick him up again (it's been weeks!). He is pretty attached to Dan right now and I hope that he welcomes me back when things get back to normal!

I'm healing pretty good. The first couple of days in the hospital were rough and made me reconsider a third baby! The c-section was pretty quick, but a lot more painful than the first. I was so numb with Jacob that I didn't feel a thing. This time when they took her out, the pressure against my ribs and lungs was agonizing! I honestly felt that my ribs were broken, but the pain went away after a few hours. I purposely took the minimal amount of painkillers so that my body would not become dependent on them, which made the beginning hard, but I'm glad because I didn't have the drowsiness that I experienced with Jacob and actually remember every second after she was born. My main complaint is back pain, but it's manageable with some high-strength Ibprofen. The best part is that my sciatic pain disappeared after she was born!!! Although my abdominal area is fairly sore, it's so much easier to move now that my sciatica is gone.

Dan and I are working on reaching our new balance of having two children. It's definitely challenging with a newborn and 16-month old, but we're figuring it out. Thankfully Jacob is continuing to go to daycare during the day, freeing me to focus on Bailey. He really needs to keep his routine going and absolutely loves it there! Dan is taking the afternoons off this week to get things done that he can't do in the evenings because of Jacob. Jacob's room is coming together, his bed is in and we'll get his dresser this week. Now we need to just paint and decorate sometime in the next few weeks.

Here is a slideshow of Bailey's first few days. Enjoy!!

Bailey's Arrival