Leaving the hospital

Hailey is one month old, where did the time go. So much has changed in the past month, it’s hard to imagine my life before baby Hailey. Many emotions have been experienced, some positive and some negative but I’d have to say the positive outweigh the negative by far.

Hailey stretching after being unswaddled after a nap

Before Hailey was born I had not held very many babies, now it feels so natural.  It’s amazing how quickly you can get used to incorporating a new life into your life.

I love everything about her. Her cute nose, ears, lips, fingers (which are getting chubby), her big feet (yes she takes after mama), and well just everything!

I haven’t posted much about life with a baby, I guess I’ve been preoccupied.

My day goes a little something like this.

• 2:30 or 3am Pry myself from bed, feed Hailey and put her back to sleep
• 6:30 or 7am Feed Hailey again entertain her for a bit and then back to sleep we go.
• 10am Feed Hailey
• 10:45am Play a bit until she gets sleepy and I put her down for a nap (which is challenging at times).

I won’t write out the rest of the day because it is very repetitive but I feed her every 3 hours (which takes about 45 min), we have some activity time and then Hailey naps while I get stuff done around the house, do some of the never ending laundry (this girl can easily go through 4 burp clothes in 1 day! She’s a spit up queen), or try to convince myself to take a nap. It’s fairly exhausting and Scott and I normally end up crashing on the couch at 9pm feeling exhausted (with one more 10pm feeding to go after that).

And just when I tell Scott that I think I’ve gotten the hang of this baby thing, Hailey goes and throws a loop in our day- She has her first cold. She started getting congested on Saturday and wouldn’t you know it, by Saturday night she was sneezing and coughing like crazy. She woke us up every 2 hours on Saturday with her coughing, making me feel so devastated for her. I think we’ve finally gotten over the worst of the cold, it certainly has not been fun.  It’s also really thrown off her schedule making life a little unpredictable right now.

At Hailey's baby shower

I know she’s grown a lot in this past month (at birth she was 7lbs 15oz and on last Wednesday Feb 17 she was at 9lbs 10oz-she’s probably at a 2 lb weight gain now) but I don’t really notice it that much, probably because I’m with her every moment of her life.  She still fits into her (borrowed, thanks Harry!) newborn clothes but they are almost reaching their stretching max point. She’s still not broad enough in the shoulders for her 0-3 onesies so they look large on her but I still put her in them, just because she looks so darn cute.

As for my recovery over the past month I seem to have bounced back pretty well. I have about 7lbs on top of my pre-pregnancy weight (I ended up gaining just over 30 lbs), but I fit back into all my clothes already so I think most of that weight lies in the chest region. I have a lot of back pain so I plan to book a massage with my favourite massage therapist when she gets back from her wedding!

Over the month I thought of many things I would write in her 1 month post, but surprise surprise I have mommy brain and can’t remember what I had planned. So I’ll leave it at that, and will add a few more photos for your viewing pleasure.

Playing with Aunt Lauren

How Hailey spends most of her day

Hailey Rhea

7lb 15 oz

Saturday, January 23, 2010

7:10 pm

First of all Thank You for all the wonderful messages that were left on the “It’s a Girl!” post. We ended up staying another night at the hospital and came home yesterday at lunch.  We had a difficult and long first night, but so far today is going much better. I’m hoping Hailey will let Scott and me get some sleep tonight.

I should tell you quickly about our name choice!  Scott has always had a favourite girls name and I always had a favourite boys name, so we knew quickly that those would be our choices for first names.  Rhea is a family name- my Oma’s name! Hailey was due on her wedding anniversary (though didn’t arrive then) and I have just always loved the name Rhea. Plus I love how they sound together… Hailey Rhea.   If she had been a boy she would have been Benjamin Gregory- we’ll have to save that for our first boy, unless we are blessed like my parents with all girls! Only time will tell but for now we’ll just concentrate on cute little Hailey.

The cats are still on edge about this new baby. Chase is so concerned everytime Hailey makes any sort of noise, it’s amusing to watch him react. Coco just sort of stays away.

Labour and Delivery was amazing and surprisingly quick (so I hear for it being my first), I’ll have to write a post about that later this week, after I gain the energy. I need to write it all down soon though, before I forget any moment.

I would say that the most amazing moment was right after she was delivered and I got to reach down to grab her to bring her up to me and the doctor says “What do we have mom?” and I got to announce that it was a girl!  We were very happily surprised and love her so much.

So there’s just a quick little into post for you, I’ll make sure to post again soon!