Feelings

When We spend 20 minutes trying to get a latch until even she is grunting in frustration ... I feel Incompetent
When I still can't get her to sleep and it's 1am ... I feel Frustrated
When she cries for what seems hours and I can't console her ... I feel Exasperated
When she sleeps curled up against my chest ... I feel Content
When I change a diaper in the middle of the night with no fuss or mess ... I feel Accomplished
When I notice that her eyes are actually focused on my face and she's "looking" at me ... I feel In Love
When Andrew says "I'll get up so you can have a break." ... I feel Fortunate
When I think of her getting sick or hurt for the first time ... I feel Scared
When I look at her perfect little ears, toes, hands, eyes, mouth ... I feel Amazed
When I think of doing all this in one form or the other for the next 18 - 25 years ... I feel Terrified, Excited, Ready, Unprepared, Lucky, Happy

When I think "We made this" ... I feel Awe-struck

It's amazing how something so little can make you feel so much.

Three Weeks

Today Lorelei is Three Weeks Old!

It's been three weeks since Lorelei came into our lives and we continue to learn more about her every day. We've been trying to determine exactly what color her eyes are. What do you think?

Andrew and I still find ourselves looking at each other in amazement and saying "I can't believe we have a baby!" Sometimes it seems completely natural as we're getting into a routine for some things. But other times, like when she's quiet or sleeping, I forget that we have a baby until I look over and "wham" there she is... a baby. This little person who is completely and utterly dependent on us. For everything. For the next several decades. Oh My Goodness, what have we done! But then the moment passes and I settle down and pick her up to feed her, again.

The weather continues to be very cold and lately rainy, so we haven't taken her outside. We haven't taken her anywhere except the doctor. I'm sure she'd be fine, but she just seems too little and fragile still to take her out visiting or on errands. She still seems too new to chance getting a cold or flu or anything. Maybe next week.

The breast pump has finally arrived, so as soon as we learn to use it, I can start stockpiling milk. That means that Daddy can give her a nighttime bottle so that Momma can sleep! It also means, that I can leave the house for longer than an hour and not constantly worry about being back to feed her since she's not yet on a very predictable eating schedule. I am looking forward to when she regularly eats every 3 to 4 hours. Hell, I'll even take every 2. Feeding her in 45 min intervals this time, 1 hour next time, 50 mins next, etc makes me feel that all I've done for the past 2 weeks is sit on the couch with a baby attached to my boob. I know this is normal, but it's a change for me. :) Good thing she's so cute.

Andrew has been so wonderful these past 3 weeks. He always asks what he can do to help me, or just does it. He has been great with making meals and bringing me drinks. And he's developed a talent for cuddling her to give me a break or to keep calm long enough for me to finish my meal before she loses patience with waiting to be fed. It makes me so happy to see how comfortable he is with her and how happy she looks snuggled inside his flannel shirt against him. I feel so fortunate to have such a loving, caring husband and that Lorelei has such a loving, caring Daddy.

This past week's big adventures included:

1) Clipping Lorelei's nails. I'd been putting this off because I'm a chicken. Her nails are just so tiny! We have a nifty nail clipper with a magnifying glass, but I found that it made it harder to focus ... the nail was magnified, but "off" somehow. I waited until after I'd fed her and she was warm and sleepy and then I snuck up on her (grin) and started clipping those tiny little nails. Some of them were still surprisingly soft, and for the most part it went well. She was sleepy but awake and didn't pull away, even when I clipped a little too close and made her bleed a little! :( I felt so bad! My baby's first "injury" and I'd caused it... but she didn't seem bothered at all. We pressed it with a tissue and it stopped bleeding right away and is already healing up well. I'll do better next time.

2) The first "tummy time". Baby Girl has been trying to hold her head up more frequently this past week. When she's awake and in a good mood she likes to be held mostly upright against your chest so she can push back a little with her arms and look all around her. I thought this was a good time to start tummy time, so yesterday afternoon and put her down on the couch and grabbed the camera. Look at how well she did! She's so cute and getting so strong! I took several pictures in high speed mode so the next series of pictures (that I'm not posting) show her gradually dropping her head and then dissolving into crying. She wasn't terribly fond of tummy time for longer than a few seconds, but she'll get there. :)

 

3) Our first (failed) attempt at a tub bath. Lorelei's belly button scab fell off last week so we had clearance from the doctor to give her a tub bath this week. However, we realized we'd neglected to purchase a baby bath or other large tub. We tried sitting her in the little pink tub the hospital gave us for the sponge baths, but there wasn't quite enough room, so we went back to doing a sponge bath. Lorelei wasn't crazy about either method. We'll have to get a bigger vessel and try again next week. Also, I have to figure out how to get a few pictures of this process, but there never seems to be enough hands! We have learned that the stay dry crib mattress pad keeps the bed from getting damp (our bedroom is the warmest room in the house), and that you need lots of extra towels because lots of crying leads to poo. The hooded bath towels work great for wrapping her up all snug and warm afterwards to calm her down before dressing her. She has the cutest little belly button now. I'll have to get a picture of that too.

4) Introducing Lorelei to vitamin D drops and the funny faces that ensued. I will definitely get pictures the next time we give her these. Dr. Bero  prescribed vitamin A, C, & D drops once per day. They come all together in a syrup-like substance that smells intensely of cherries. You're supposed to fill up the dropper to 1 cc and squirt it in her mouth or food or bottle. Since we're exclusively breast feeding, it had to be her mouth... this is easier said than done. It's a little hard to get a baby to open her mouth on cue. I did eventually push her jaw open a little with a finger on her chin, and Andrew stuck the dropper in and squirted in the vitamins. Lorelei closed her mouth, went through a rapid succession of surprised and "yucky" faces, and the syrup came oozing back out of her mouth. As I wiped up her face she kept opening and closing her mouth and poking her tongue in and out as she scrunched up her eyebrows. The second day we gave her vitamins, Andrew just squirted a little bit at a time, further back in her mouth. The first squirt she actually swallowed, but the next two she mostly oozed out. We'll get the hang of it soon, but if this stuff tastes as strong as it smells, I'd spit it out too! I feed her right after to get the taste out of her mouth and she seems to appreciate that. :)

Well that's it for this week from the Lonsbary household. Thanks for reading!

She's Official!

Lorelei got her first piece of mail the other day.  It was very neat to see an envelope with Lorelei Lonsbary on the label. :)  It was her Social Security Card!  I guess she's an official person now.  Or maybe she won't be "official" until we get her birth certificate.  In any case, she's recognized by the government now. Good thing we're not conspiracy theorists! :)

Two Week Update!

Hello Friends and Family!!


On Tuesday, Lorelei turned two weeks old!

I can't believe two weeks have already gone by! It seems like it went by so fast! Little Lorelei is gently worming her way into our hearts as we get to know more about her every day. She still sleeps a lot during the day, interspersed with feeding and crying, and a few short awake/alert periods. These are my favorite and I can't wait for them to be longer and more frequent. When she's awake and content, she looks all around her with big, wide round eyes. She looks right in your face, and then darts her eyes off to look at your edges and the light from the window and the lamps. She seems to particularly like looking at the line were the wall meets the ceiling as well as the hall way light fixture.

We gave her a bath on Sunday afternoon and she seemed content through the whole thing until the last few minutes. The room was sunny and warm and she'd just woken up form a nap, so that probably helped. Part of the scab fell off her belly button while I was drying her off, and the rest fell off this morning, so this Sunday we will probably be able to give her a tub bath instead of a sponge bath. She'll hopefully like that better.

Our Dr. appointment on Monday was rescueduled because Dr. was sick, so we'll go see her on Thur instead. Hopefully Baby Girl will have gained some more weight. Andrew has weighed her by stepping on the scale holding her and then not holding her, and subtracting the two weights. By this method she weighs about 8 pounds. I hope the Dr. office confirms that tomorrow. :) She would then be 1 pound heavier than she was at birth.

Her facial expressions have broadened, but still aren't always connected to the events in her life. This morning, I swear it looked like she was "practicing" emotions in the mirror, like and actor might do. She did Confused, Startled, Angry, Interested, Happy, and somethign that I can't really label but has a halfway curled lip and a furrowed brow. She ran through all of these in less then a minute and had me laughing while I tried to settle her for her breakfast. She still makes her little turtle face when we pause in nursing for a burp. She purses her little mouth like a beak and stretches her chin up and the the side and opens her eyes really wide... just like a turtle stretching it's head out of it's shell for a look around. :) I've tried to get pictures of a few of these, but the camera focusing on her sometimes distracts her and she frowns.

This afternoon we did a little "photo-shoot". Here are some of Baby Girl's close ups. :) Isn't she cute!? :)

This one is why I think the nickname Duckie fits her so well. :)

We're still working on breastfeeding. I'm starting to pick up some of her hunger cues. She starts licking her lips, and opening and closing her mouth and making little fussy noises. Of course these little fussy noises may also mean that she has a dirty diaper, and some times she just goes right to crying, but I have been very happy that a few times Andrew and I caught her little signs and got her to the breast before the wailing started. :)  The last two days have been a little difficult because Lorelei's had a really gassy tummy.  When you hold her you can feel the bubbles moving across her tummy.  She seems so uncomfortable.  She cries and scrunches up her legs and when she burps or passes gas she seems to calm down a bit.  So I'm trying to hold her more up-right when I feed her and burp her more often.  We're doing light tummy massages and lightly bouncing her when we walk.  That all seems to help a little bit.  I guess we'll ask Dr. Bero about other things to try when we see her tomorrow.

On the happy side, Lorelei is very snuggly when she's sleepy. At night, Andrew will tuck her into the blanket on her lap and they'll sit at his computer while I shower and sneak in an hour of sleep before he brings her up for more feeding. They look very cute wrapped up together playing games or surfing the web. :)

I'm doing pretty well too. I'm mostly recovered from giving birth, but still am not allowed to lift "anything heavier than baby" so no carrying the laundry basket up and down the stairs for me. Andrew is being so helpful about that. I'm not as sore, and most nights we're getting more sleep so I'm feeling more energetic. The weather has been cold and icy/snowy, but yesterday and today I was able to go out for a brief walk.  Today  it was even sunny.  It's very, very nice to be a little more active and to be out on my own for a little while.  I still get a little weepy at times, usually for no real reason, but that's much less now too.

The Spring semester began today for faculty at Jefferson Community College. It was a little weird not to head into the office this morning, but my two online classes are up and running and students are already interacting. Until the breast pump we ordered arrives I can't leave the house for more than 2 hours, because Lorelei needs nursing, but once the pump gets here, Andrew can do some of that and I can run into the office for a meeting or to the library or such. In a few weeks we'll take Lorelei in to visit as well.

That's all for now from the Lonsbary Family! :)

First Week Update!

This Monday marked Lorelei's first week in our lives.  I know it sounds cliche, but it doesn't seem like that long.  She's really becoming a part of our lives and we're settling into a sort of a routine.  As we reach the halfway point of her second week of life, I thought I'd let you all know how things are going.

We were discharged from the hospital last Thur and the rest of Lorelei's first week was filled with doctor's appointments for blood work to check on her jaundice.  This was very stressful for me; worrying about my new baby's health, having to watch her cry as blood was drawn from her heel stick, and worrying that I wasn't adequately providing for her since she was losing weight and my milk didn't come in until Friday afternoon.  However, we are happy to report that at her last doctor's appoint this Monday, she got a clean bill of health!  Her skin was pink, and she's started gaining back some of the weight she lost.  On Monday she weighed 6lbs, 12oz, and she'd grown about half an inch long (give or take).

We're still waiting to see what color her hair and eyes will be. Right now, her hair is somewhere between light brown and dark blonde, and not much more than a velvety fuzz up front, but a bit longer in the back. Her eyes are harder to determine; they're brownish in the center and fade into a slate-blue around the edges. We're excited to see what color they resolve into.
We have all learned many new things this past week and a half.  Lorelei has learned to nurse effectively (most of the time), and to sleep (kind of).  In fact,  last night she twice slept for 2 hours straight between feedings.  It's nice to feel more rested.

Andrew and I are also learning things.  We're learning that Miss Lorelei doesn't like to be undressed or have her diaper changed.  We are also learning to have a second (and sometimes third) diaper ready because sometimes, no sooner do you get the new one on then she wets or messes it.  We are also learning to tag-team her.  I do the night time feedings and then he looks after her for a couple hours in the afternoon so I can nap.  Then, in the evening, I'll go to bed around 9 or 10 after feeding her and he'll bring her up for me to feed again when he comes to bed around midnight.  This way each of us gets a chance for a few hours uninterupted sleep and a chance to not be responsible for this tiny new little person for a little while.

Some milestones that Lorelei has experienced this week are:
Her first bath at home (she did not enjoy this)
She is already working on trying to hold up her head.  She really seems to want to look around her.

That's it for right now.  We'll post some more pictures soon.

She's Here!!

Andrew and I are very happy to announce the birth of our daughter, Lorelei Jean Lonsbary!
 
I will post more details about the birth and her one week update a little later.  However, here are the brief details. She was born at 7:38 pm on Tue, Jan 3rd. She weighed 7lbs 6oz and was 18 in long. My water broke around 12:40 Mon night/Tues morning. We arrived at the hospital around 3am. Nothing happened until the next morning when I was started on Pitocin and contractions began shortly after. Later that evening I received an epidural and by about 6:30 I was pushing! After an hour of pushing, Lorelei popped out!  It was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. :) 

We are all doing well. Little Lorelei has a lot to learn about the world, like how to nurse, how to sleep, and how to burp.  Each of these things is a new challenge for all of us to overcome and a new opportunity to learn about each other and grow the bond that's developing between us.

As you might expect, Andrew and I are a little tired, but we're adjusting well to our new roles.  We're so thankful for all the well wishes we've received from friends and family and now that we've had a week to settle in and get to know each other we're looking forward to starting to introduce her to everyone.  We've found that Skype is a great way to do this long-distance, so if you have a Skype acocunt, please let me know and we can do it!