The First Days

K is 4 days old! Crazy! I honestly don't remember hardly anything about Wednesday through Friday. It is all such a blur and didn't even seem real. In fact, on Friday when we got out of the hospital, we thought it was Wednesday. It felt like we hadn't already lived Wednesday. In my head, it felt more like the world just kind of stopped for us so we could have our baby and once we were out of the hospital, it could continue on.

Friday as soon as we got home, we had to call the pediatrician. We found out early Friday morning that K has jaundice and was in the top 95% risk for developing jaundice. She was at a very high risk and we needed to see the doctor as soon as possible since he didn't actually go to the hospital to see K. We had our appointment two hours after getting home and found out she looked good except she's losing lots of weight. Friday morning she weighed in at 6 lbs 11 oz, a 10-ounce drop, and at the doctor's, she had lost another ounce. K is now supplementing her feedings with formula which has been a sad thing for Mike and I, but not sad for K. She is finally getting enough to eat and will sleep longer than an hour without being hungry!

After the pediatrician's, the rest of the day just kind of passed without me really knowing what was going on. Kristin, Chad, and Izzy came over, as well as Christa and Camron. I don't remember much of what happened while they were here except for feeling bad that I had just woken up and feeling so much pain that I didn't know if I wanted to sit, stand, or lie down.

Our first night with K was miserable. She kept crying and no one had prepared us for handling a crying baby. We had no idea what to do other than try to feed her but she didn't want to eat. We called in the nurse a few times one hour because we were more miserable than K and didn't have a clue what to do. The nurse always found what was wrong with her and finally at 4 am, Mike was able to go to sleep while I held K for the next 2 hours as I drifted in and out of sleep.

We were worried that would be the same for our first night home with K. As we put her down on her bilirubin bed (to get rid of jaundice), I hoped and prayed that she would not be crying in 10 minutes. Amazingly enough, I ended up waking her up 3 hours later because she needed to eat. She ate, fell back asleep, and 3 hours later I had to wake her up again to eat. Since she has jaundice, it's recommended that she still eats every 3 hours. She was definitely hungry each time and was so content. I ended up getting up with her around 7 am and we started our second day at home together.

Yesterday, the second day but the first full day was good. She is such a peaceful baby and I finally have a good handle on her as to why she may be upset and the past couple days, I have usually caught her messy diaper before she even starts crying!

Last night, however, was a different story. It was the first night all over again but with different reasons as to why I was sad. I've heard stories of women who feel sad that they just can't quite produce enough colostrum for their babies but I never really understood it until last night. The doctor has asked me to only feed her for about 3-4 minutes on each side and then give her the bottle. It makes sense because after 3 or 4 minutes, there's not much left and K just has to work so hard to get anything. I'm really excited for milk to come in so she doesn't have to have that nasty formula anymore. It does weird things to her bowels and leaves granules in her mouth. I'm not a fan.

After crying and being able to sleep for an hour or so, I woke up to Mike standing next to the side of the bed with a screaming K. He was so sad and didn't know what to do to stop her from screaming and apparently she had been screaming for quite a while. I got up and fed her and she was a peaceful baby once more. She slept really well throughout the rest of the night and I ended up not actually getting up until 8:30 am. I got plenty of sleep, K got plenty of sleep, and we are both pretty happy right now.

However, I'm not looking forward to when she's sick and cries because she feels yucky or when she starts crying just to cry. We're lucky and haven't experienced it yet, but I'm sure it's just around the corner. As for now, we're just loving having her around.

And the best part of this whole weekend was yesterday morning when she first fully opened her eyes and looked around. I normally burp her in her room in this one spot and she will stare and stare at the picture in front of her as she's being burped. Yesterday she also started staring and Mike and I. She spent probably 10 minutes last night just looking at me as I talked to her. I love her eyes. They are absolutely beautiful!

P.S. Photos are on our actual blog. If you are not invited to our blog yet, let us know and we would love to add you!