So, things here are going well, all things considered.
Recovery from my surgery is...going. I have to stay on top of the pain, but for the most part it's limited to early mornings now and the days are getting better. It's hard not picking Molly up, only for the sake of getting things done faster, but she's been great at climbing to where I need her. The hardest part for me is remembering that I'm still very much on the tail end of major abdominal surgery. Imagine losing 30 pounds, being completely free of intense chronic pain and suddenly having endless energy. Would you really want to sit down and relax? So I'm trying to take it easy, but the pain meds can really mask the pain and hormones well enough to make me feel like I can run a marathon. And I'm guessing this weekend coming up is going to feel like I've run a marathon, so I'm trying to rest while I can!
Baby Claire is doing great. Nursing was slow to get off the ground, but I'm happy to say that she's still be totally free of formula and we're just trudging through the bad latching and sleepiness. She seems to improve a little more each day. The lactation consultant at the hospital said that being born at 38 weeks was probably the reason she wasn't ready to latch well and that every day outside the womb would be a step in the right direction. I'm happy to report that she was right and we're getting better and better!
Claire is quite the screamer - while she's been an easy baby so far, she makes up in volume what she lacks in colic. She's not a fussy baby by any stretch, but she gets what she wants the second she wants it. I think we're all a little afraid of what the noise would sound like if she got really mad, so we do everything we can to keep her happy far ahead of her needs! Her cry sounds a little like two mountain lions fighting for a deer carcass. Just not something you want to hear more than once. Ever.
Sleeping is going okay at night. She's up about three times a night and goes back down pretty easily. We had decided to keep the crib and the bed separate just for ease of movement at night, but it looks like we're going to suck it up and push them back together. Claire wants us all to sleep very, very close, but I'd really like her to have her own space. We'll do that this afternoon and see if we can't get her sleep a little better. I still can't sleep on my side, so until I'm healed up a little more, it's going to be difficult to find a spot in bed next to a tiny newborn. Until I can sleep curled around her better and let her nurse more freely, I think having her in her own crib is going to have to work.
Claire took her first shower this morning! She was getting stinky again so we decided to introduce her to what may be the most populated bathroom in Texas. Our master bath is like Grand Central, I tell you. This is one reason I was relieved to find we had another little girl - it's simple when everyone is one gender. Generally, the girls go nuts in the bathtub while I shower next to them in the glass stall, and then I hop out and do their hair before I dry off. This may be the most complicated part of my recovery, as I can't use the tub until I'm completely healed, and post-partum showering is...insane. And then you add in the fact that I can't bend over to wash them outside the tub, either, and things get even crazier.
So this morning we had two girls in the tub and Daddy holding Claire. I got in the shower, Andrew handed Claire to me and then flew about the house gathering diapers, towels, clothes, etc. Claire thought the shower was groovy. Passed out almost immediately. While I cleaned Claire, he rushed to wash the girls and then grabbed the baby to get her diapered and squared away. Once she was put back in her swing, he gathered up the other two and got them dried off and out of the bathroom.
And then I had to get out. I know that most of you women who read this blog know what a one-week-past-delivery shower looks like. There is nothing more inconvenient about the end of pregnancy than the post-shower dash. You finally feel clean and fresh, only to have to dash through getting your hair and body dry and put back into your battle armor before your entire shower was completely wasted. What a joke. It's even worse when you have a c-section, because you can't put cover up a damp incision, so you really need to air-dry, but everything else needs immediate attention. Showering exhausts me. (I seriously just wrote an entire paragraph on showering. I may delete this.) I would delete this. Love, Andrew
Lucy and Mo
Andrew. Don't write about me. :-P
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