Adjusting - the first two weeks

We've now had little Audrey in our lives for over 2 weeks and it's sometimes hard to imagine life before she was here.  She's already added so much to our little family and I love having her be a part of it.

So far, she has been an amazing baby.  Because of how active she was inside me, I was convinced we'd have a wild child but so far, she's been an awesome baby.

The first few days in the hospital were an adjustment.  Fortunately my mom was in town and was able to watch Barrett.  It was hard to be away from him and he didn't quite know how to react to me at the hospital, so it was a little sad.  I think he was confused because every time he tried to climb up on me or get near me, we were afraid of him hurting me and my incision so he was pulled off.  So he kept his distance.  But I loved being there with my new baby girl and starting to get to know her.

 

Daddy and daughter in the recovery room

It is funny how they're so different already.  When we had Barrett, we kept him in the nursery most nights at the hospital so we could get a good night's sleep.  When the nurses wheeled him into my room to eat, he was shrieking as loud as he could and would quiet down only when he heard my voice.  With this little girl, we barely heard her cry.  I had her sleep on me during the nights because she was so cuddly and calm. And Barrett woke up every 2.5-3 hours, ravenous and angry from his empty belly and ready to eat.  Audrey squirms and whimpers, that is if she wakes at all.  We wake her up at night to eat.  The few times I didn't, she slept from 5-8 hours!  I hope this doesn't change.  In our family, we love our sleep so hopefully she'll be no different.

The smiling big brother.  Yes, I may have bribed him with a graham cracker to get a smile, but hey, it worked.

This pretty much sums up every picture we tried to get as an entire family.

Tim took a week off work to be home with me and my mom was here the following week.  Having a c-section is hard because you do need a lot of help.  It is hard to get in and out of bed at first and reach for the baby.  I definitely couldn't take care of Barrett alone, lifting him in and out of his booster seat, putting him in the car, etc.  Now that I'm in the third week of recovery, I can do a lot more so have been on my own and been okay.

Feedings have been a lot more complicated than I ever envisioned.  I won't go into details now, but we are facing some challenges in that area that we'll need to deal with over the next year.  It's a lot to juggle.

We still are finding our way with a newborn and soon-to-be-2 year old but so far we've been greatly helped by having such a mellow baby and lots of family help!

First afternoon home as a family of 4