8 Days

Milk face makes mama happy and proud!

The last 2 days have been lovely, as Willa and I are both feeling stronger and healthier. Little W's bilirubin has gone down, which is great, so she is moving the jaundice out of her body. Because of this, she has woken up! We're having many more periods of quiet alert time during the day, and she's better able to suckle, so she's eating more, which makes my heart happy. She was 1oz below her birthweight at one week of life, which the doc says is fantastic, as the goal is to be back at birthweight by 2 weeks old. She's a superstar in my eyes.

Besides going to the doctor, we took our first little family walk...yesterday? Just up to the library a few blocks away to replenish our book and cd supply. Cj also has his first 'new dad wearing brand new baby' experience at the coffee shop by the clinic. Just about every woman in the place came up to him, absolutely cooing over the baby and asking questions. It was so sweet to see his totally proud papa face.

I can't believe it has been a week already. The days and nights blend together in a dozy wash of milk, diapers, and cuddles. We've been getting pretty decent sleep, which seems to keep us coping well and even being able to socialize with our lovely visitors. Cj's keeping me up on the political 3-ring circus and we're now deep into a parenting book our friends recommended called "Nurtureshock," which makes for great reading aloud while pumping, which is otherwise extremely boring. Next pumping activity? Thank you cards! After that? Baby announcements! I'm hoping we can drum up some interest from our artsy friends to help with this...I don't even know, can you make them online?

Now it's the weekend for the working world and we are looking forward to taking Willa on more walks and getting out of the house a bit more while the weather is still so beautiful. We are going to the bookstore today in search of a baby book and ink pad and plan to take her footprints as we completely forgot to ask our midwife or her doctor about this!

Much love,
Keren, Cj and Willa