And the first weeks home...

Here's what I remember about the first few weeks that Lena was home...

1. Waking up every three hours to feed her.  This was a challenge for me, but more so for Justin, as he had to go back to work Monday morning.  So I was the one (pretty much) who got up to feed her all night long.  Every three hours, I had to wake her up and try to get her to nurse or eat from a bottle, while trying to be sure that she was eating more than she did the time before.  When we first brought Lena home, we were happy if she would eat more than one ounce at a time... which was not very much!

2.  Trying to get her to nurse.  I put this in a separate section because it was a whole different challenge all in itself.  No one tells you nursing is HARD!  Lena did very well with it, actually, but she would nurse on me for 45-50 minutes total, and then still want a bottle.  By the end of four weeks, she was up to about 4 ounces per feeding... she would take that much from a bottle after I nursed her!  So frustrating, because this whole process took about an hour and a half, and she needed to be fed every three hours.  So, after five weeks of trying to nurse, I gave up and went to formula full time.  I don't feel guilty about this decision.  I am a little disappointed that it didn't work out, but Lena is healthy and happy, and it only took about half an hour to feed her after that!

3.  Trying to make sure she gets enough to eat.  For the first couple of weeks, this was quite a challenge.  All Lena wanted to do was sleep... it's very hard to get nutrition into a sleeping child.  I know, we've all heard the old 'don't wake a sleeping baby' thing, but she was so very tiny that Dr. Rice was worried that she wasn't eating enough and wouldn't gain weight.  This resolved itself after about two weeks, but at the beginning, it was just something else that we had to worry about.

4.  Very yucky poopy diapers.

*Pure love.
*Pure joy.

I'd like to say that we didn't really do much those first few weeks, but Lena had Dr. Appts. every week until she was a month old, so she got very used to her car seat very early on.

I think the reason I don't really feel like I remember that time is what some people call the 'mommy amnesia' thing... where we don't remember the really sucky parts, because if we did, we would never have more than one child!