A milestone!

Tonight marks a pretty big milestone for Eliza: we're going to try putting her in her crib in her room.

Janie's nervous, but I think that after a month, she's ready. We're pretty sure the sleep positioner is making it hard for her to sleep, and since Janie's afraid she'll roll over and smother in the Pack 'n Play without it, we're moving her to the crib.

Dunno if it'll work all night, but we're gonna try. If we get more sleep because she's sleeping better, we'll be thrilled.

One month!

Eliza hit one month officially today, so we decided to steal an idea from Marissa and chart her growth next to a stuffed object.



She'll be bigger than Raggedy Ann by six months, I'm betting.

Fall (asleep)

The baby's sleeping schedule is rather erratic. One night she sleeps well enough, the next night she sleeps all evening and is up and ready to be awake when we're ready to go to bed. We are, in a word, TIRED.



Other than the sleep deprivation, we're doing well. I've picked up a bit of a cold, though. It's a challenge to take care of a baby while sick. If anyone has any hints for not passing it to the kid, please let me know.

S(p)itting up.

Our little girl has reflux issues. We've been advised by our doctor that Eliza needs to be sitting up for 30 minutes after meals. We tried having her sit in the Boppy. She seemed to enjoy it, but on the vinyl couch, she'd slide down as soon as she'd wiggle a bit. As much as we'd love to hold her for 30 minutes after every meal, there are times when that would be meal time to an hour total. That's great, but we'd never be able to do laundry again.

We decided tonight to break out the booster seat Heather (thanks Heather!)got Eliza for her baby shower. We strapped it to one of our dining room chairs and sat her in the living room with us. She looks just like a a big girl.





She looks pretty comfy and ready to eat. She's pretty much always ready to eat. Last night Brian was trying to comfort her while she was crying. He'd read about something called the "colic hold" in one of our baby books. While attempting this, the baby demonstrated how determined she is to eat every five minutes by attacking Brian's thumb and sucking as hard as she could. She does this with pretty much any object placed directly in front of her face. I'll show you.



How cute is that? She certainly inherited her insatiable love of food from both her mommy and daddy.

Growing!

We had a follow-up at the pediatrician on Thursday. Eliza's chest x-ray looked good, so she thinks the blue face is related to acid reflux. We're doing our best to keep Eliza upright after meals, but it's sometimes hard to hold a floppy infant who immediately zonks out after she eats. We've started propping her up in her Boppy after meals and she seems to enjoy it. She also enjoys looking around at the world.

Eliza enjoying her Boppy!


I'm hoping the constant seated position will help her stay awake during the day and make it easier to get her days and nights turned around. Sleeping isn't her strongest skill. Eliza is starting to try to smile a bit and is doing a great job trying to push herself up and look around when she's lying against someone's shoulder. She also makes a solid attempt to hold her own bottle and pacifier.

I'm currently operating on less than three hours of sleep. The baby spent the better part of last night wanting to eat constantly. The doctor thinks Eliza is overeating, so she wants us to limit her intake to 2 oz. of expressed breast milk at a time. I think we're going to try to eliminate as many bottles as we can, assuming she seems to be getting enough to eat.

As for me, I'm still working on healing from the c-section. I have a home health nurse coming daily to take care of my incision. It hasn't entirely closed since my stitches popped open almost three weeks ago. There's concern that it isn't healing quickly enough, so it may require further action when I see the doctor on Wednesday. We'll see. My blood pressure and blood sugar seem to be returning to normal, though! Isn't that great news?

We're otherwise doing well. Adapting to working on little sleep, but happy to be enjoying our very adorable little girl. Sorry for the gap between posts. I can't even imagine how anyone with multiple children finds time to breathe, let alone blog!

The winds of change...

BIG wind over the weekend knocked out our power Sunday.

We ended up decamping to Mom's house (she's out of town) because there was electricity there and we could sleep. Eliza handled her first road trip pretty well, except for the part where she wouldn't sleep a lot.

Power finally came back yesterday morning, so we're home safely now.

Eliza actually slept really well last night, though. Janie got up and fed her at about 4, and I got up around 3:30 or so and got her to stop crying by turning on the heartbeat sounds, so Janie and I both got a good night's sleep for the most part.

A-OK!

Eliza's heart tests came back fine. Now we're just waiting to hear back about her chest x-ray.

Yay.

Eliza's first check-up.

Eliza went to the doctor for the first time yesterday. She was so excited she peed all over the doctor's table within seconds of having her temperature taken. Already the comedian. She's up to 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 20.5 inches long. She's in the 50th percentile for height and weight and the 75th for head circumference. She takes after her daddy for sure!

Unfortunately, Eliza tends to get a little bit of a blue tint around her mouth and eyes at times. The doctor was concerned enough to check her oxygen levels. They were fairly bad in the beginning, but there were questions as to the accuracy of those readings. A little later and once the baby was warmer, her oxygen level was better but still not perfect. The doctor was still concerned enough to order some heart tests and a chest x-ray. Off we went to the hospital where Eliza behaved like a champ while having some very grown-up medical procedures.

They're sending the heart tests off to Louisville for reading and we should hear back about those soon. The chest x-ray is being sent to Eliza's doctor once the radiologist looks at it. Hopefully we'll know more soon.

Otherwise, Eliza is very healthy, happy and keeping us up all night. I've tried to get her to take an interest in her swing, but it mainly just makes her cry. She does seem to like Eeyore, though. Here she is staring intently at the Eeyore on her mobile:


Here's a phone picture of Eliza when she's wide awake. She's always so alert and checking out the world.

Bubble Bubble

Tonight Eliza got her first bath. She certainly didn't enjoy the experience, but we did get to dress her up in her cute bath towel. Of course, her robe is gigantic on her, but hopefully she'll grow into it soon!

Baby crying her eyes out in the tub:


Eliza trying on her gigantic bath robe. This picture makes her look like she needs some satin shorts, a trainer and a promoter:


Eliza all dressed in her pooh gear and giving us the "I hate you for dressing me." face:

Drink up!

Today's post title is inspired by Eliza's ability to pack it away. Seriously, she can take down a 2-ounce bottle in just a few minutes and want more.

Janie had to make a trip back to the doctor's office this morning after her C-section incision started weeping fluid last night. Turned out to be a popped stitch, which was quickly repaired.

Eliza's pretty well recovered from her jaundice, it looks like, but we won't know for sure until after a trip to the hospital tomorrow morning. She's off the light now, at least.

Everything else seems pretty copacetic, at least for now.

Let the sun shine in....

The baby is adjusting to home life by becoming a tan junkie.

The baby had a bit of breastfeeding-related jaundice, so she's been hooked up with a little tanning bed to use in her pack n' play. She looks like such a little Paris Hilton tanning it up. The good news is, her jaundice is clearing up and this should be the last night on the machine. Here she is tanning:



Our daughter is, as expected, rather precocious. She's very curious and constantly surveying her surroundings. She was trying to hold her bottle at 3-days-old and trying to lift her head up to look around the room at 4-days-old. Last night she didn't make a peep for FIVE HOURS in the middle of the night. I even got up and checked on her around 3:30.. She was awake and looking around quietly while we slept. What a kid! She's already working on her impressions. So far she's doing a pretty good Christopher Lloyd and a FANTASTIC Dana Carvey.

As for the rest of us, we're exhausted and proud and so very excited to have our daughter at home. The c-section recovery has gone fairly well. My blood pressure is still an issue, but hopefully that will clear up soon. I'll be interested to see what happens with the gestational diabetes. I plan to ask about that at our doctor's appointment on Friday.

Most of the Eliza pictures have been taken by family members. While we wait for those to roll in, let me show you a couple of my favorite pictures from our time with Eliza.

Brian at the hospital taking care of the baby while I showered:


Eliza on the way home:


The BEST picture. Ever:

Home!

So, Eliza and family came home yesterday afternoon, and not a moment too soon, let me tell you. Mommy and Daddy had spent more than enough time in the hospital.

Janie and Eliza have gone back to the hospital this morning, though, because she's slightly jaundiced and they want to check her again. If it doesn't clear up, she may have to go back into the hospital for a few days of chilling under the blue lights.

Eliza's being kind of fussy about eating, so Janie's going to talk to some people at the hospital today and over the next few days to make sure that Eliza gets enough to eat.

I'm going to take over watching Eliza for a while this afternoon when I get home so Janie can get a nap, because while we're both exhausted, she's a little worse than I am. I did manage to catch about five hours last night, although that was interrupted a few times by crying and a moment when Janie though Eliza might have gotten hurt (she was fine.)