Now that I've gotten all the drama out of delivery, let's discuss the fruits of my labor! I briefly got to hold Nina before I went to surgery, but only for a few minutes. It wasn't until I was back in my room for a bit, did they bring her to my room. Lee says that he's never seen someone completely change as I did once they wheeled that tiny bundle in. Because I was in surgery/recovery for so long, they had to give Nina a bottle of formula (anyone who knows how obsessed I am about breastfeeding knows that Lee was scared to tell me this piece of information. It was the first thing I said to him when I got to see him after surgery "They had to give her a bottle, didn't they?" haha). Due to my fluid loss, all of my colostrum dried up, so we had to supplement with formula until my milk came in (9 days later). I would nurse for 20-30 minutes and then she would get a small amount of formula.
Having a newborn was easy as pie in the hospital; when I wanted to sleep, the nursery came to get her. They would bathe her, clean her belly button, change her diaper, whatever we needed! I totally thought I was set to roll with this newborn thing. I mean, whoever said that it was hard, was completely crazy, right?! ;) haha Then we came home. The first night I thought, "Um, baby, I don't know if you know what I went through to get you, but I'm tired and need sleep. So, please just be quiet and we'll be fine!" Oh my word was that first week's sleep (or lack thereof) completely crazy! She slept fine during the day, but we were doing great to get 90 minutes uninterrupted sleep. The second night, I called mom at 4:00am to see what in the world I was doing wrong. Who knew that this was normal?! At this point, I had to take a minute to regroup and figure out how in the world to get this child on a schedule so we could sleep. Babywise: an incredible book on sleep patterns and schedules that guarantees a full night's sleep between 7-9 weeks. Here we are at 5 weeks, and she's doing great! It isn't recommended that a newborn sleep for longer than 5 hours without eating and she's currently sleeping for 4 1/2 hours.
I've been asked if being a mom was surreal and the answer is simple: yes! At her first appointment at the pediatrician, they called for "Nina's mom" and I giggled like I did the first time Lee was referred to as "your husband".
After we were home for 2 days, we noticed Nina was getting irritated in the diaper area. At this point, we decided to make the switch to our cloth diapers. We are so excited about our decision to use these diapers. Everyone's cautioning has proven to be false.
1) Our house doesn't smell like poop. The only time we smell anything is the few times we've used disposables
2) No folding required. A little stuffing, but, it honestly takes 20 minutes every 3 days
3) It will save between $2,000-$3,000 a kid
4) Lee and I both have crazy sensitive skin and this takes away the issues of diaper rash which also saves time and money with creams.
We basically love them!
More details on the growing baby to come soon!!
