The secret formula to getting Emerald to take a nap at 6 weeks = tummy. Every doctor and new mom will tell you “back is best” and that’s how Emerald sleeps at night, but during the day the only way she’ll nap is if you lay her on her tummy.
She has pretty good head control, but until she’s able to push herself up with her hands, I’ll have her nap on the couch (a firm place) so I can keep an eye on her.
So I’m one month into motherhood. I definitely wanted to document my thoughts and emotions because it will be interesting to see how I feel come two months in, or even a year in.
When you are pregnant you just think about this cute tiny little baby inside of you, you prepare the nursery, take labor classes, but I honestly never really pondered motherhood much. Not sure if I was just too busy working on house renovations or the fact that everyone tells you motherhood is great, so why think about it much? I’m not saying it isn’t great, it’s just a lot different than I imagined.
I’d say the first month was pretty tough. You have all these crazy emotions, baby blues, you are exhausted, you start missing your old life when you didn’t have a baby needing your attention about 23 hours a day. The best way to describe my emotions were that I was jealous of all my friends who didn’t have babies yet, and if they were pregnant I wanted to reach out to them and tell them the honest truth about having a baby… get ready, your life is about to change and it’s not all rainbows.
I came across this article and I read it a lot, it puts into word my exact feelings the first month: What Nobody Tells You About the First Three Months of Motherhood. The whole “sometimes it won’t feel worth it” and the feeling like an ungrateful jerk” part really were how I felt. Many times I thought about what it would be like if we waited a few more years to have a baby… and then the mommy guilt sets in.
When I was going through some of the baby blues, I also read this blogpost The Baby Blues, My Fear of Pampers and Finding Joy Again. While I wasn’t facing depression, just the normal baby blues, this girl reminded me about the true purpose of motherhood. She also reminded me about how God’s called us to be Emerald’s parents and he picked us to raise her and how he is changing my priorities to make room for her and focus on us as a family. Suddenly my perspective changed, in that it wasn’t just all about me and my old life and how it is no longer existent, but about this new chapter in life where God’s growing me into Emerald’s mom. I’m now reminded how much Emerald needs me and her dad, that I need to be there for her. I think the thought of being needed changes so many things, everyone wants to be needed.
I’ve also learned to stop googling all my questions about babies, milk supply, and motherhood and really start praying and asking for God’s help and guidance. Sure I can try all these things to make my baby take a nap, but I can also ask God to help show me what she needs to she can nap. And I need to remind myself of this everyday.
So for me, motherhood is about changing your perspective from looking at myself to thinking about what’s best for her. It didn’t come easy, but I’m there and only expecting things to get better. There is a season for everything, and this too shall pass were things that I remind myself, so that I cherish where we are now, but look forward to where we are going.
Emerald is almost five weeks old and I’m learning she gets bored a lot so I set up her little activity-hanging-thing and she already loves it. She brings her hands up to hit some of the toys.
All this baby stuff SO doesn’t match the color scheme of our house, but she loves it, so it stays. I feel like this will be the new reality.
How in the world is my little newborn a month old already? She may still look like a newborn and weigh as much as a newborn (6 lbs 8oz), but I can already see how much she is growing.
She is way more alert and not so sleepy 24/7, she is SO close to smiling on her own (not just gas or in her sleep), follows moving things with her eyes, is starting to “talk” or just make some sort of noises, hits the toys on her mobile when laying on the floor, sits quietly when you read a book to her, and can turn from side to side thanks to her being so light-weight.
To capture the true essence of a one month old and help us remember this time, I took some video of her and tried my best to figure out iMovie and combine these clips. Hopefully this will improve from month to month!
My family got together to celebrate my dad’s 53rd birthday and the fourth of July. Now that there are three babies and one toddler we try to just all hang out at the house since it’s a challenge to get them all out of the house well-fed, well-rested and happy at the same time!
We managed to have a pretend slumber/pajama party on July 3rd!
On the 4th we headed to the Pewaukee parade and fireworks and grilled out at our house in between, since it’s such a short walk!
And a few outtakes…
Little Miss Emerald is three weeks old and she’s starting to try to tell us stories…
Last Thursday we had Emerald’s newborn photos taken by the same photographer that did our maternity photos, Theresa Hermus. They turned out great, too great, in that we have no idea which ones to get printed to hang!
Em was a little angel for the photos, slept the ENTIRE time + no poop explosions of any sorts while she was naked. Win. Win.
It’s been two weeks since Emerald was born. And while we didn’t really know what to expect the first two weeks, it definitely was a bit different than we had imagined.
When you get married the first year you’re basically in the honeymoon phase. When you have a baby there isn’t that honeymoon-everything’s-perfect phase, not at all. You’re totally clueless on how to raise and take care of this baby, you are sleep deprived, hormones are insane, if you’re breastfeeding that brings quite a few challenges, and you basically have a few moments like “what did we get ourselves into”. We had to really get to know our little gem and learn her quirks, how she responds to everything and figure out a good schedule and routine and now that we are getting to that point of knowing what to expect next, everything is going smoother.
Those first two weeks it was also crucial to have someone helping us. Our church provided meals for us, my mom provided a ton of help around the house and was helpful in making sure I was taking naps. Drew was also keeping track of my meds and would text me from work when it was time to take the next dose. That sounds so crazy, like I can’t keep track of when I took medicine last, but my brain was like mush those first two weeks.
I’d say now that we passed this two week mark, everything is getting sweeter by the minute. Emerald continues to gain weight, she’s eating well, and taking naps and we’re figuring things out better and I even got the chance to do a load of laundry and vacuum today. The first two weeks I didn’t get to really spend time just cuddling and rocking her and now that things have slowed down and we don’t feel so stressed, it’s so nice to enjoy this time with her. These 10 weeks of maternity leave are going to go by way too fast! We’ve been taking lots of photos (check out Facebook and Instagram), but here are a few shots we’ve taken with our canon the past two weeks…
Along with Emerald doing great, so am I. I stopped taking the percocet after one week and now am only taking advil as needed when I get some swelling and sore around my incision. I’m also surprised at how fast my body is bouncing back. I really thought I’d be in much more pain with a c-section, but I’m feeling almost 100% most of the time. Overall, I gained 25 lbs during my pregnancy and am currently only 13 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight. I took a photo similar to how I was doing the week by week photos for comparison. Thank you breastfeeding!
Emerald came just in time for us to celebrate Drew for Father’s Day! He was a dad for less than a week, but he already took his job seriously and was taking great care of us both in the hospital! We love you!
We also took this quick video on Father’s Day – we’re hoping to keep documenting little moments like this throughout the year.