Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Recap 2011- April

The month started out with a bang, literally, with my contractions beginning on April 1st, they increased during the night, and about 5 am on April 2nd, I knew it was time to think about the border crossing and getting to the hospital.

Long story short, we got to the hospital safely, were admitted after a couple of hours, and just 16 hours later, 6-7 of which was active labor...

Last "just us," picture!"
Grace entered the world!

She needed some help after inhaling her muconium....
But she was soon breathing well and we had our first family picture moment.

She was taken to the NICU and would have to stay there over night for observation. Ian went to check on her while I was stitched up.

Somewhere along the way, she got worse. We still aren't sure what happened. She needed a little help (nothing big,) help breathing and was hooked up to some monitors and had IV antibiotics going on.
We slipped into see her for a little then went back to bed, waking in the morning to nurse her. About six hours later, she was released to our room, still on IV's.

Sweet baby girl did well, though we really had no idea what we were doing, ha!

We had friends who were with us during the delivery and we had other friends come by to see us and Grace and to bring food.

On April 5th, we were released and went home.
The rest of the month was a blur of rec

Grace nursed well, and slept best swaddled (until she was 5 months old,) she slept with a hat on and usually long sleeve footie pajamas.

I think, during the first 2 weeks I didn't nurse as much as I could/should have, meaning we had a sad and hungry baby. If I could do it all over, I would feed her alot more and pump after every feeding. Even if the pumping would be a pain, it would help to store and freeze during those early excess days.



I had a new little model for my photography, and I loved learning how to take pictures of my baby girl.


Ian went back to school about a week and a half after Grace was born, and I watched all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls during those first few weeks.


Grace loved bathtime and would instantly become calm. We learned the trick of diaper changing after her feed, which also resulted in a much calmer baby.

Our tiny baby girl gained weight and grew steadily.


And near the end of the month, got to celebrate her first holiday...Easter!

We had Easter lunch (ham and all!) at a friends house and it was our first real outing.


Ian did such a great job at learning all thing baby and daddy related, considering he had such a sharp learning curve (never changed a diaper before Grace!) He got up with me in the night, even when I just had to nurse her, to keep me company and would rub my feet.

His big arms are perfect for snuggling Grace and he would often pace up and down the front hallway, talking in a super low voice to calm her down.

Near the end of the month, my maternity leave was coming to an end, and I tried to soak up every moment of stay-at-home- mom time that I could. I knew it was going to be a LONG year and 2 months until I could be a stay-at-home-mom again and I knew it was just a strange season in my life.

2 comments:

Jessica said...

What an exciting month! I loved seeing all those adorable pictures of baby Grace

Erika said...

So fun to look back! I see she was swaddled until 5 months...our little one just turned 5 months and we keep trying to take out of the the swaddle but she doesn't sleep otherwise. Do you have any tips/tricks?:-)