Reese and I were discharged from the hospital last Sunday, March 23, and we have pretty much been doing the same thing every day and every night. Throw in some appointments and errands to run, but still basically the same thing every day...and we couldn't be more grateful. We feed Reese on a schedule, and she even wakes up to that schedule at only 10 days old. And at nighttime, she goes right back to sleep. Glorious, I tell you.
So here's what we do:
Sleep, in varying positions, in varying places, but usually in the pack 'n play:
Stare:
Swing:
Snuggle:
This is my dad's football-playing, man-handling hand:
Eat, sometimes loudly (but still turn up your volume):
I love this little girl so much.
Tonight, Emma kissed Reese for the first time. It was awesome, and I thought my heart would explode. The only thing that doesn't make me infinitely happy right now is the fact that I can't pick up Emma yet. She often says, "Mommy, I want to hold you," which in Emma-speak means she wants ME to hold HER. And I can't. But we did take a nap together the other day, and her snuggles and hugs reminded me that she will always want me to hold her, no matter how much I hold Reese.
Day 2 of Reese's tiny life was a much more low-key day for most of us. My pain is getting better, with the help of some good drugs, and I've been trying to walk to reduce some soreness and prevent getting stiff. Reese has been awesome, sleeping and eating so incredibly well. I realize that she doesn't eat much, but still - feeding her takes MAYBE 5 minutes, from the time the bottle goes in her mouth until we're done burping her. Yes, even done burping. Before any of you start in on the just-give-it-2-weeks lectures, I am fully aware of how quickly and drastically newborn behavior can change. All I'm saying is that the least exhausting thing in my life right now is Reese herself.
Reese doesn't cry, she squeaks. I take that back - she cried today when the nurse was squeezing the blood out of her toe for a blood test. She only cried when the nurse had been squeezing her toe for a while - not a peep when she was actually stuck; not a peep when she had another blood test done...nor for her hearing test...nor for her HepB shot.
Reese weighed in 7 ounces lighter than her birth weight and can only lose 3 more ounces before they will change her formula. Are we worried? Nope. She passed her hearing test on her left ear, but the right ear will be tested again tomorrow because she might have some fluid in her ears from being a c-section baby. Worried? Nope. What am I definitely worried about? I just watched her almost roll over, just by kicking her legs in her swaddle and turning her head. I'm telling you, my 2-day-old almost rolled over.
Reese was wonderfully sweet today with moments like this:
Here's what I mean by how quiet and squeaky she is...I just had to video these few moments of squeaks, mouth pops, and tongue clicks, accompanied by swimmy newborn arms. Sorry to bore you, but I'm a newborn mom...this is what we do.
All of this so far is the good...the bad, unfortunately, is Emma. SHE'S not bad, her acceptance of Reese isn't bad; it's her hesitation that we're not happy about. Emma doesn't want anything to do with Reese. Today she told us, in no uncertain terms, that she doesn't like Mommy, Daddy, or Reese. No yelling or crying about it. Just simple statement of fact. Ok, what she thinks is fact. She says things like this not out of hardness of heart but out of her 4-year-old inability to comprehend and explain her emotions. I most certainly DID tell her, in no uncertain terms, that she is NEVER to say that she doesn't like Mommy, Daddy, or Reese. (For the record, she apologized and then 10 minutes later apologized for crying.) She has been pushed to kiss Reese, hold her, hug her, touch her, watch her, wave to her, blow a kiss to her, but it's so very clear that she needs to do this at her own pace. And that's fine. After some attempts at pictures with Reese, I made the executive decision to stop punishing a crying Emma with taking pictures with a tiny human so small and unlike a baby doll - Reese is close to only 6 pounds even, y'all, and you know how newborns look: really, really new in some ways but really, really old in others (wrinkly feet, dry skin) - that's kinda freaky for a 4-year-old who has never had any reason to think that all real babies look like baby dolls. And Lord help if some toy manufacturer ever decides to create baby dolls that actually look like newborns - cradle cap, dry skin, jaundice, hairy shoulders, umbilical cord stump, explosive black/green poop, cone-shaped head, angel kisses, stork bites...Reese has some, but not all, of these. Sorry, folks, but these are all things that we, as decent human beings, overlook to declare a newborn cute. So yeah...no pictures of Emma and Reese yet.
I know that if Emma is forced to love and accept Reese, bad things will happen. I can just see it in her face and her reactions yesterday and today. It will have to start with being in the same room as Reese. Start small. Don't start asking her questions about Reese. Just act like everything is normal. I can see it now - one day (hopefully in the near future), Emma will quietly ask me, "Where's Reese?" I will say, "Napping in her room." And that's it. No pushing the issue for either of us. Soon afterwards, she will say, "Where's Reese?" "Napping in her room." "Can I go see her?" I understand how my child operates, so I really hope that Emma doesn't go through such a drastic jealous child phase that this whole scenario that has played out in my head never comes true and I'm left calling Dr. Phil. Or the SuperNanny.
I sure hope that Emma remains predictable and that Reese becomes predictable. My Type A personality needs this. But the mommy in me will accept and love my babies unconditionally. There may be moments of dislike, but never moments of unlove.
After naming the new baby Reese, I thought it would be interesting to look up the meaning of the name: enthusiastic, eager, ardent, fiery. FIERY. I could have told you that based on how bad I felt during a lot of the pregnancy and based on how active she was.
WAS. She WAS active.
On Wednesday, March 19, 2014, I had a regular old ob visit with Dr. Moore (the man who delivered Emma). At 4:30, he and I both agreed that there was no real need to check if I was dilated, etc. I then proceeded to go to church and arrived at home around 7:45. After a couple of visits to the restroom, things didn't seem quite right, and then around 8:10, I felt quite certain that my water was breaking. NOT IN THE PLANS! No bags packed, nothing. We basically threw an iPad at Emma and waited for my mom to watch her while we hurriedly packed only the basics just to get us through one night.
Russell and I left for the hospital around 9:00. I was still able to have a c-section performed by who else but Dr. Moore. He and I just looked at each other and kinda laughed...5 hours after we both felt that I wasn't even close to labor, and there he was, laughing because it was absolutely unnecessary to question whether I was in labor: my water had been breaking for about 2 hours at that point (see, this is why we can't have nice things - one of my all-time favorite jokes). Russell's parents came to Greenville to watch Emma so that my mom could come to the hospital - sometimes ya gotta have your mom. Mom arrived in time to wait with us in pre-op.
I only had to experience about 10 contractions that were strong enough to feel before I went into the OR. Everything went pretty routinely after that, and we ended up with this darling jewel born at 11:43 pm, weighing 6 lb, 9 oz and measuring 19 inches long:
So fiery Reese came on her own time. Sounds like she fits her name, right? Well that sweet little darling was as quiet as a mouse for about 30 or 45 minutes after she was born. She never cried at all. Then all that activity I felt in my stomach for all those months showed up again in a squirmy, hungry little girl...but again, not a peep of crying, fussing, or complaining - just showing the typical baby signs of hunger.
Once we finally got in our room, Reese got a bath and a bottle, and she guzzled an ounce of formula in really good time. Since then (we're almost at 24 hours), she hasn't been all that interested in eating much, but those first couple of days are kind of hard to force them to eat. In the first 24 hours, she has lost 3 ounces of her 6 lb, 9 oz, and I'm not one bit worried. We have faced so much with Emma that Reese's eating patterns seem so trivial. I may eat those words later (no pun intended), but for now, we are just basking in the joy of this wonderful new treasure in our lives. Reese hasn't cried all day, and she has slept like a champ. She makes these darling little peeping noises, both awake and asleep, and she has a talent for making quite an array of faces - some of them not so cute, actually!
I have been in a lot of pain from the c-section, and the nurses have had a hard time figuring out what's good for me. I'm coming up on only sleeping for 1 hour out of the last 40 hours because the pain was so bad last night that I laid here in the bed, listening to Reese and Russell sleep and wondering if/when my pain would fade enough for me to actually fall asleep. FINALLY, late in the day today, my pain was manageable, and we took a walk to try to exercise out some of my soreness and to get the gas in my body moving around - when they open you up like that, gas gets trapped in your body. Weird, huh? So here she is on our walk, in her hospital-issue bassinet:
And then there's this:
Reese had a total of 18 visitors today, excluding grandparents, along with 6 staff aside from nurses. Our room door revolved all day, but happily so.
Ok, so as for Emma's actual birthday and birthday weekend - what a whirlwind weekend it was!
For starters, a sweet boy's birthday party on a farm, with horseback riding:
Behind the yellow cage, week-old baby goats:
This chicken's hair is for real. And it always looks like this. Now take a second and think about someone you know whose hair this resembles...because we all know someone...
Day-old baby lamb:
The beginning of Emma's horseback ride didn't go so well - she wanted to lean over and lie down on the horse because she could feel that she couldn't balance and felt like she was going to fall off (what a scary feeling that must be, especially that high off the ground). Of course, Daddy was there to hold her and make her feel more secure.
This looks like a real smile, but it's just a camera smile...in the next picture, you can see her smiling with her mouth, but her eyes are saying, "Get me off this bleeping horse."
And later that night, a calm family dinner to celebrate the doodlebug, including some of the best cake I've ever had:
And finally, on Emma's actual birthday, I didn't take any pictures of Emma opening her gifts from us. Again, I was too busy focusing on my darling one to really care about the pictures. But I did snag these at dinner before she ate her favorite food, quesadillas and "chippies." And the complimentary dessert was one of those fried ice creams with so much whipped cream on top that we didn't actually know what was underneath. Emma only wanted the whipped cream, so Russell and I indulged on the ice cream. After inspecting it, I could have sworn that it wasn't fried, but I think I was wrong...which means we accidentally cheated on our Lenten sacrifice of fried food...unless we decide to be those people for whom Sundays don't count, and then we're good.
So Emma started a new school back in February, and things did not go well. She cried in the morning and said she was scared of her school (we later figured out that she doesn't actually understand the full meaning of the word scared). She said she wanted to go back to her old school with her old friends. This was after being away from any school at all for almost two months, away from church for about six weeks, and being with an adult, one-on-one, being coddled and waited on for about six weeks. Oh, and she was three years old. Emma was also going to school five mornings a week with VERY early mornings, so we had to get a little stricter with her bedtimes. We finally feel like we have reached a near-perfect combination of sleep, comfort in her school setting, and regained independence. She is still struggling with Wednesday nights at church because she gets so tired so quickly in the evenings.
For a while, too, Emma was just plain whiny. A pill about EVERYTHING. She had to learn some really fast lessons about sharing, saying I'm sorry, not getting your way, not yelling at Mommy and Daddy...all the things you deal with with a toddler/preschooler, but we were hit with all of it in about a week's time. Maybe she was spoiled from all the post-op attention, maybe she was just being a three-year-old. But she was not our Emma.
Thank goodness, she's back now, for the most part. This child is happy and hilarious (when she's well-rested and fed). Some of you can actually vouch for this: in the last two weeks, she has become less shy and more huggy. As in, push her wheels as fast as they'll go, throw her arms in the air for a hug, and let her wheelchair stop by slamming into your shins...but you hardly notice the blood trickling down your shins because the hug she is giving you is one of the best, tightest hugs you've ever had. And those little wheelchair-pushing arms are stronger than most three-year-olds' :)
Emma has done amazingly well at therapy; we were all prepared for some setbacks after surgery. She LOVES to walk on the parallel bars at therapy, and our precious PT loaned a set to my parents so that Emma can walk with them at their house. She absolutely adores them. Today we were informed that her therapists would be teaching Emma to pop wheelies in her wheelchair. For real. I think it's to help her gain a better feel for the movement of the chair and understand how to balance it better when it comes to ramps. Or it could just be for fun.
Medically, Emma seems to be doing fine, after her back incision FINALLY healed. We disagree about one thing in our family: I personally don't think Emma's choking is any better, but my mom and Russell do. In the end, it doesn't really matter what we think because the surgery is done, and it is what it is. Troup never made any promises. We understand that these surgeries were necessary at some point in time, and I'm glad that we did them early enough that her symptoms weren't even worse.
Ok, so pictures...
Back to a change in sleep patterns. Here's what happens after 4 birthday parties in one day - falling asleep in the car and being completely oblivious to the fact that you've been carried inside, prepped, and put to bed:
One day, she will KILL me for posting that last picture. Her belly looks so huge, too...oh wait, it was a day filled with cake and ice cream!
First (and happiest so far) day at her new school:
Something occurred to me after Emma started crying about going to school...I will never and have never cried about my child going to school...realizing that she's growing up and time has flown by, blah blah blah. I think it's because we have such a desire for her to live a "normal" life, and school is her biggest opportunity to do just that. There are so many things that she CAN'T do, things that her friends are starting to do. So if she's happy going to school, I am ten times happier than she is...however, if she cries about it, I'm ten times more upset about it...because, again, this is her biggest opportunity to do things just like all other kids do. And if she hates it? There's not a whole lot left.
Emma's small party at The Children's Museum - this place has the best setup for parties I can imagine. I didn't take very many pictures because I was trying to be the mom of the party and be with my baby girl at the same time.
I'm so glad some of Emma's guests got to practice doing useful things...like milking a cow...
Craft time - how did they know that all Emma needed was a popsicle stick and some "gwue" to make her happy?
I dare any adult to visit The Children's Museum and NOT find something he or she wants to play with.
Our little diva does NOT like getting her hands dirty; she'll leave that to Daddy.
So it's been over a month since I've blogged, and that means we've been busy...therefore, a lot has been missing from the blog - preparing for the baby (we have a name! - see blog post title and see paragraph below), getting Emma adjusted to her new school and new schedule, and celebrating Emma's birthday plus what feels like 20 other kids' birthdays.
To start with, the name we have chosen for our baby girl is Reese Elizabeth Young, and we will call her Reese. She will have the same initials as Russell (Russell Edward Young), and although my middle name is Beth and not Elizabeth, she will still have a little piece of my name, too.
The kindest two ladies from our church came over a couple weeks ago to be my personal assistants, and I couldn't be more grateful. They washed and washed and ironed and ironed and ironed. They mopped our kitchen floor. They put away baby clothes. They filled in the dates on Reese's baby calendar. They even left dinner for us. All you tired mama's out there will probably agree with me that someone else doing these things for me while I was at work is better than 8 hours at the spa.
Reese's nursery and all her necessities are ready, should she decide to come early. As of today, March 18, I have ten days until D-Day (Delivery Day). Two weeks ago, my doctor "checked" me (if you don't know what this means, don't think too hard about it and just go with it), and she said I will probably go all the way to D-Day. Of course, she said it in her teeny, tiny, adorable, bubbly little voice that made it really hard for me to say what I wanted to say: "CHECK AGAIN!" in a large, loud, angry, exasperated, impatient voice. Last week, my blood pressure and measurements were all fine. I go back tomorrow, and I am certain that my blood pressure will still be fine, even though my feet and ankles are threatening to swallow my toes. I said goodbye to my wedding rings weeks ago (sniff, sniff), and my feet are too fat to wear flip-flops. So just exactly what are you supposed to wear if your feet are too fat for even flip-flops?
I'll take and post some pictures of Reese's nursery soon, but right now I have my feet elevated on pillows, and I'm only getting up for 2 reasons: (1) to read to Emma before bedtime (one of her new favorite pastimes) or (2) to pee (Reese plays the drums on my bladder like she's in a high school drumline).
Ok, that's enough for one blog post. Next up, Emma's new school and her birthday celebrations! And pictures this time, I promise.
Russell and I live in Greenville, SC and have been married since December 17, 2005. We have a Pekingnese/Shih Tzu mix named Lola, and our first child, a daughter named Emary, or Emma for short, was born on March 16, 2010. Baby #2 is due in April 2014!
