A minute.

Sure, last Wednesday, I had a little test drive of what my days would be like at home with two under two. It went great, but it wasn't real. I knew that Josie was going to Grandma's in the afternoon and that hubby would be home earlier to help me with packing to leave for the weekend.

Today is the true first day. I have the girls at home all week by myself. So far, so good, but I'm being cautious, waiting for meltdowns and moments when I just want to hide away from the chaos. I'm not naive; I know that things will get crazy at times and I'm waiting for the first episode of that.

So far today, I've gotten Josie fed, bathed both girls at the same time (miracle, I swear), got them both napping at the same time, showered myself, had some quiet time, and now have a few minutes for blogging. All this by 11:00? I'll take it.

There are so many things I could be doing right now, but I'm going to try to enjoy the quiet with my coffee that my hubby so graciously brought me since we are out of filters and can't make it at home. (Why does that always happen the day after grocery shopping?)

Christmas music playing, I think I'll put my feet up for a minute and enjoy the (relative) silence. Just for a minute.



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Audrey in Photos

I didn't seem to have any good pictures of Audrey close up, so I went a little crazy taking a bunch of pictures the last couple of days. Here's the photo dump.

The hospital had a photographer come in and take some newborn pictures that I could purchase if I wanted. I snapped a few myself instead.

Snuggling in the hospital waiting for the all clear to go home.

We spend a lot of time like this... she sleeps so long and so deep and I can't get enough.

Must be some dream to scowl like that!

All the strange faces a newborn makes...

When she is awake, which seems like hardly ever, she is AWAKE and stares for so long at different objects. Sometimes I just want to move her to make sure she's ok because she is so still for so long.

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Sisters

I had low expectations for Josie meeting Audrey. She's only (almost) 17 months old. Come on, how much can she really understand? We'd been prepping her as much as we could, talking about the "baby", pointing to my belly, practicing saying her name, but generally she seemed to ignore us as much as possible and showed very little signs that she understood. Sure, she liked patting my belly and other babies, but none of that really meant she understood.

She'd been staying with her grandma and grandpa while we were at the hospital, so they worked hard on getting her to say "Audrey". Also, her grandpa's tradition is to buy a small stuffed animal horse and bring it with to the hospital when he meets the baby. Of course, the horse had been within Jo's view at their house, so they'd been working on explaining how that horse was for her sister, Audrey. 

It turned out that Grandma and Josie were the first people to arrive to the hospital, so Jo ended up being the first one besides hubby and I to see her. How cool is that? She came running into the room saying "Baby? Baby! Baby? Baby." She said it with a question-like tone, excitement, a factual tone, and repeat over and over. Hubby picked her up and she looked really close for maybe two minutes before moving on. I couldn't have asked for more. 

Once Grandpa caught up and came in the room, the next big focus for Josie was getting that horse she'd been wanting to hold for so long. Grandpa gave it to her and told her to bring it to the baby. She listened and "shared" it with her, but mostly she was just so excited to hold it. She spent most of the rest of her time there sharing it with everyone and passing it around. It was pretty sweet. She still calls the horse "Audrey horse". I don't know if she understands that Audrey's name is just Audrey and not "Audrey horse".

She was pretty happy to have a little one-on-one with us too. Glad she missed us a little bit at least!

All of her life, Josie has been the main event with everyone around. Being the first grand kid on both sides, she knows how to get laughs and generally gets a ridiculous amount of attention. With the addition of her cousin four months ago, she's learned to share it and how to interact with a baby, so we were blessed to have that part learned. She didn't seem jealous at all and was happy to clown around with those interested around her. Generally, after that initial interest, she was not interested in anything Audrey related. I'd take that over jealousy any day.



There was one point in the day that she wanted to hold the baby. We got pictures and I'm so glad we did, because it was priceless. She was all about it, got a good look, and was done. She even pushed her away like "Okay, let's play with the next toy!" Too funny.

Initial thought  - "Yeah, holding this baby is the most fun!"

And we're done. 

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Audrey's Birth Story Part 3

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here if you missed either of them!

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Once the Epidural was in, I fell into a restless sleep. I would wake up every five to ten minutes because of all of the activity in the room and time seemed to go so slow. It was 8:15 AM. By 10:00 or so, my nurse checked me and said that I was at 8 cm and almost fully effaced. That was awesome news. It didn't seem to have been that long and progress was obviously being made. She said to let me know when I felt like pushing, but I figured it would be a while before that. I slept a little more and woke up a couple of times when I could feel the contractions high up on my stomach. I figured the drugs were not as strong at this point and planned to have the nurse give a little more. When she came back to check in again, she just noted what I told her and said to let her know when I wanted to push again. I was surprised that she wasn't going to change anything, but too drowsy to really care since they weren't hurting.

After a couple more contractions, I noticed that I felt them more in the middle of my stomach and told hubby that it felt like things were moving down, although I didn't really feel like pushing. My nurse was adamant that I would feel like it soon, so I just kept waiting (much more awake now!) to feel it. Not even five minutes later, I could feel that familiar urge to push and she got me ready to go. The midwife and her trainee came in, watched me push through a contraction, and all jumped into place frantically. They said that I was doing great and that she'd be here in a few minutes. WHAT? I thought this would take at least 20 minutes and was willing to do it for hours like I had to do for Josie. I didn't believe them. It didn't seem possible.

After a couple more pushes, they told me she had a ton of hair and that it was super dark. I could feel the contractions but there was no ring of fire like before. I didn't feel the urge to scream out and was laughing through part of it because it seemed so surreal. They had me push one last time and out she slipped. Seriously, she slipped out. It was like nothing. She made a bit of noise and they put her on my chest right away. I wasn't sick or nauseous and was fully able to enjoy the moment. They were cleaning out her nose and mouth since she had some Meconium in the amniotic fluid. I held her for quite a while before letting them take her to get cleaned up.

We all took turns guessing her weight (because yes, the midwives and nurses were awesome and acted like family at this point) and were all guessing around 9 lbs. We were all wrong when she weighed in at just 8 lb 6 oz. That may not seem small to you, but in our families, she is the smallest baby by more than half a pound! Hubby was a big baby, my sister and I were, Josie and her cousin was, etc. She is also longer measuring at 21 1/4 inches long. (Josie was 9 lb 7 oz and 20 1/2 inches long). 

I look out of it but I think I was just blinking. I was actually smiling and crying and laughing more than anything at how wonderful she is.

A lot of hair and sweet pink skin. She looks like Josie a little but they have their differences. You can definitely tell they are sisters though!

The midwife and her trainee did their thing while we took pictures of her, texted our friends and family, and laughed with each other at how truly blessed we were. We were just giddy! It was so different than with Josie, where I was completely out of it for the first couple hours of her life.

Our immediate family came in the afternoon and met her. Josie got to meet her first, actually, and I'll post those details as a separate post. It was also a sweet moment.

My recovery has been awesome. My nurse said I had hardly any swelling. I did tear along the same spot as before but it was minimal and my pain was more discomfort than anything. I was up and moving around easily and already feel almost back to normal just four days later.

Audrey is such a joy (it's her middle name too - so perfect). She's sweet, hardly fusses, eats pretty well, and loves to cuddle. My mama heart is full.

I had a really hard time finding a picture of her face, so this zoomed in shot is the best we have from her first day. Oh well!

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