Our first two weeks were full of doctor's appointments. We had to load the baby up basically every other day to go to the pediatrician to get weighed. Unfortunately, my breast milk wasn't getting Kayla up to her birth weight quickly enough... despite how often we tried to breast feed, so we had to start doing some supplementing with an ounce or two of formula per feeding. I was very nervous in these initial appointments because Kayla kept wanting to breast feed to be comforted during these appointments, and I did not have the confidence to feed her on the fly like this. As a matter of fact, during our second weigh in appointment, we were waiting in the waiting room for over a half an hour before we got into the room to be weighed, and I was just crying in the waiting room because I was so nervous that she was going to need to eat there! I don't know why this was so scary to me, but during our first appointment I had to feed her on the fly and I really struggled and the pediatrician was watching me and it was just very overwhelming to me. It was like breastfeeding level expert and that was our second day home, and I just didn't have the confidence. So I was very nervous during our next appointments because I didn't have our pillows and setup ready to breastfeed her. Within the next couple of days, I ditched setting up a bunch of pillows and switched to using the boppy which I found was a lot easier to use. So I ended up just bringing my boppy with me to our next appointments and I felt a lot better about them. Our hardest appointment was the next week on 1/27 and that was the follow up for Kayla's heart. We had to take her in to get an EKG and Echo to see if she had a VSD. This appointment was a struggle, baby was not happy with this appointment at all. They had to place all these stickers and wires on her to do the EKG and they kept ripping off and hurting her. She was crying and flailing all over the place and the tech woman had a scrunched up look on her face like she wasn't used to baby's crying (she also had a cough which was freaking me out). So it was stressful to try to calm the baby down. I tried setting her on the boppy and nursing her... which did calm her down, but the tech ladies couldn't get all the stickers into place in that position. We had to put her on the table, and I pulled her over and leaned over to try to nurse her. Which is so funny from what I felt I could do only a week before... but desperate times call for desperate measures. Thank god that her heart sounded fine and her EKG came back normal. Three doctors listened to her heart and decided that it sounded normal, and combined with the good EKG they decided that she didn't need to go through with the echo. That was such a relief. I'm so glad that our poor baby doesn't have to go through any of that anymore. I had a lot of sympathy for what my parents went through with me, even though I know they had way more appointments and it was way worse for them. Just that taste of such a poor upset baby during that EKG was hard and stressful on me. I'm so thankful that we're done with that and don't need to do it again. I'm so glad that I was able to comfort her enough to where she was able to relax long enough to get the test done.
Tummy time has not been a big hit, but slowly but surely Kayla is doing better with it.
Dex is especially concerned when the baby cries and he often comes by to see what is going on. Cosmo keeps his distance a bit more.
The swing is hit or miss. Sometimes she likes her swing and other times she doesn't want anything to do with it.
Here she is in her boppy lounger.
Katelynn and Shawn were fantastic! They brought me over pre-washed and packaged snacks which was absolutely amazing our first week. They were able to come in and peek at the baby. I was so appreciate of them! And they even wrote sweet messages on each baggies of fruit that they made up. It was so incredibly sweet!
The first couple of days, I had a bunch of pillows set up and a towel (incase of spit ups) down that we were using to breast feed. But I quickly realized that this wasn't our best set up and after a couple of days I decided to give the boppy a try and realized that I liked it much better.
Kayla's favorite position is laying on the boppy nursing with mommy. These first two weeks, she has been pretty sleepy while she eats and has a hard time staying awake for a full feed. I think this is why she's not gaining weight. A breastfeeding group I'm in says that because I had an epidural it might take up to 3 weeks for her to not be sleepy. I'm not sure if this is the case or not, because I thought that I had learned in my class that the epidural wasn't supposed to impact the baby... but I'm not sure what I could have done differently.
Here is the best daddy ever! He has been waking up with me all throughout the night to do the baby's diaper changes and then he brings her over to me to eat. I can't believe how lucky I am to have him! He's such a great help and such a good daddy. Kayla's other favorite spot is "daddy's bounce house" she loves it when daddy walks around and bounces her.
Here is my beautiful baby girl sitting up with mommy! Our first bath in the baby tub went kinda rough too. Once she was out, I wrapped her up in towels to dry her off and she peed all over me and the floor! I was kind of in shock by it. She also developed diaper rash this week, so we've been combating that too.
When Kayla was 10 days old, mommy started taking her newborn pictures! Here are some of my favorites. I love how artsy this picture looks!
This is probably my favorite picture! This is how she looks all the time when she's laying in my arms "milk drunk."
I love how girly and sweet she looks in this picture.
Love how alert she is here!
My adorable baby girl!
Mommy and daddy worked really hard to set up Mickey and Minnie for this picture.
Here she is in her crib! Look how little she is!
On 1/28, Aunt Hannah and Maia came over to see us. Hannah took some family pictures for us, and Maia go to meet Kayla.
Reading my favorite book to her in front of her crib.
My profile picture!
Cody's profile picture.
Love my baby girl so much!
Daddy's girl...
Daddy's favorite pose of the day... Haha!
Love these two with all of my heart!
On 1/29, Aunt Becky, Uncle Bobby, and Abby came over to visit and see Kayla for the first time!
These girls are about 2 months apart and we can't wait for them to grow up and be great friends with each other!
On Jan 30th, I was heading back to the doctor's for my 2 week follow up appointment. In these last two weeks I've lost 26 lbs and all the swelling in the my feet have gone down!! I can't believe how skinny my feet are again!! My appointment went well, except that my stitches weren't dissolving so the doctor had to cut them out for me. I feel quite a bit better now that they are gone.
The only sad part about me going to my appointment was that it was the first time I've been away from Kayla. I tried to feed her all the way up until I left the house, but Cody said that she started screaming about 5 minutes after I left and it took him over an hour and half to get her settled down and to sleep. My poor sweet baby! It made me so sad to know she was so upset.
