No Chocolate for Breakfast: Evelyn's first week

It's been a week already since the long labour and beautiful birth of Evelyn.

We stayed in a private room at the hospital until the evening the day after the birth. The nurses at Montfort were mostly very good, though our stay was a little awkward as midwife patients normally prefer to go home shortly after the birth and we had to somewhat fight to be allowed to stay longer. Because of Evelyn's high birth weight (9.3lbs is 90th percentile) she required a blood sugar test every three hours for her first twelve hours. Between the blood sugar test, needing to breastfeed Evelyn every 2-3 hours, taking Advil and Tylenol every 4 hours, and Evelyn's mucus-filled gagging noises, I got very little sleep that first night.

The first evening visiting hours were quaint, with only our parents, Casey, Liana and Caleb visiting.
The second day evening hours had some friends coming to meet her.

Recovery for me was amazingly fast compared to when I had Liana and Caleb. Despite how big Evelyn was, I only needed one stitch and pain was comparably minimal after delivery. I was disappointed to still look about six months pregnant, though. In the past I was one of those moms other moms love to hate, the kind that walks out of the hospital in her pre-pregnancy jeans. I had packed my pre-pregnancy jeans but to my dismay I could barely get them on and definitely couldn't zip them up.

Evelyn ready to go home.

We were curious how Dexter would react when we brought the baby home. While staying in the hospital Casey and Darcy both took Evelyn's hats home for Dex to smell. When we got home with the baby Dexter didn't react at all! He was ecstatic to see us, especially Darcy, but completely ambiguous to our new family member. No change since that day. A funny thing that's happened a few times is that he walks into the nursery at night and we can hear his paws on the hardwood through the baby monitor.

Both our parents asked if there was anything they could do to help out in the first week so we suggested frozen meals. We received shepherds pie, soup, chicken enchiladas, meatballs, pasta salad, and lasagna. So appreciated over the course of the week! One of my best friends even came over with her daughter one evening and cooked for us (roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies and a strawberry dessert = yummm).
We lucked out.

On day 3 my milk came in. I know this because my breast were painfully engorged and Evelyn decided she wanted a 20 hour nursing marathon. According to the Breastfeeding Problems website, it's common for babies to go through their first growth spurt a few days after coming home from the hospital, so we weren't concerned.

On day 4 Evelyn lost her umbilical chord. Darcy noticed while changing her diaper. Umbilical chords can fall off between 3 and 45 days, with a mean of 13.9 days. Falling out early is not problematic and, yay, no foul odour from slowly rotting.

We've been figuring out all of our baby merchandise. I've used the Medela breastpump a few times and we're testing out different bottles. Evelyn loves her mamaRoo swing (looks like something out of the Jetsons!) and her super stroller. We're still figuring out the sling (seems a little loose when we put it on) but she's fallen asleep in it every time we've used it. She seemed to somewhat enjoy her baths in the Puj Tub (only cried a little while we washed her hair). We made the switch from biodegradable disposables to cloth diapers yesterday when we noticed her meconium poops seem to be done. At night she sleeps swaddled in her miracle blanket while listening to womb sounds from the sound machine (added advantage of blocking out sounds made by the rest of us) - it hadn't occurred to me that we'd also be falling asleep to womb sounds since we use a baby monitor.

It's hard to comment on how Evelyn's been sleeping since every night has been so different. One stable aspect is that I wake up to feed her but she often wakes up soon afterwards at which point Darcy goes in to rock her back to sleep. Last night was her best night's sleep, waking up only twice for feedings between 10 pm and 8 am.

We've taken her for short walks around the neighbourhood and yesterday we took her to the mall quickly since Caleb was in dire need of a haircut. She also "watched" her first movie yesterday, Kiki's Delivery Service, with her brother and sister. Speaking of the kids, Caleb has been craving attention since Evelyn's arrival. We've never seen him so hyper and sticky. Liana on the other hand has been maternal to Evelyn, more patient than usual with her brother, and more helpful than usual around the house.

Cuddling with the siblings while watching Kiki's. This is actually
when I found the time to write yesterday's blog on the birth.

Evelyn's weight dropped down to 8.5 pounds and is now creeping back up (8.8 on day 6). The midwife is hoping she regains her birth weight by her two week appointment, gaining about an ounce a day. I only have three pounds of pregnancy weight left to lose, woohoo!