5 weeks 1 day old

Emily's already a little more than a month old. CRAZY how fast time flies!

She sleeps pretty typically for a newborn, which means she sleeps for about 2 hours (3 if we're super lucky which isn't often) then wakes to be fed/soothed for an hour or more. And that process continues throughout the night. So not terrible - most nights, anyway.

Ally continues to be very, very careless with Emily. She's not even 3 years old yet (she will be in a few days though), so I don't expect her to truly understand it all. But I have found myself snapping at her a lot lately, because she's CONSTANTLY in her face, squeezing her fingers way too tightly, grabbing her, etc, etc... I remind myself constantly to calmly explain how to be gentle with Emily to her. And a lot of the times I do. But she just doesn't seem to care and just goes at Emily full-force still.

Evan continues to dote on his baby sister. He still calls her "his baby" and constantly says, "Mama, she's just so cute!". I am still amazed at how enamored he is with her. I've never seen him be so lovey to anyone before. It's SO heartwarming! Some of his other behavior towards ME is another topic altogether, though. Not something I have the energy to go in to at this point.

Postpartum blues have definitely started to kick in to gear. I've been feeling more and more overwhelmed as the lack of sleep continues. It certainly isn't anything like it was when I had Post Partum Depression, thank God. If it gets anywhere NEAR that point I'll be sprinting for the nearest psychiatrist.

I'm too exhausted to type any more updates but will attempt to later on this week. That's all I can manage to share tonight!

Great night last night!

So Miss Emily finally decided to be nice and give us a break last night! She slept from 10pm until 2:30am and then didn't get back up until 6:30am! WOO HOOOOOOO!!!!! Granted, I woke up like 5 times, checking the video monitor to look at her and make sure she was OK. I would see her move a little in her sleep and then think, "OK, she's gonna wake soon". Then she wouldn't.

I *know* this will rarely happen for now, but I sure do appreciate when it does happen!

Ally had a playdate at home with a little girl her age this morning while Evan was at preschool. She was sooooo excited! My friend Amy came over with her 2 youngest children: Ellia (about 5 mos younger than Ally) and Natalia (14 mos old). Ally kept saying, "I'm gonna play with THE GIRLS!!!". Sooo cute!

She and Ellia played beautifully together, and I can't wait to get them together again soon. Ally desperately needs some little girls to play with & she clearly enjoyed it!

My girl's got some ATTITUDE!

Tim was taking pictures of Emily RIGHT after she was born, and she promptly flipped him the bird! LMAO!!! If this is a harbinger of things to come, then we may just have out hands full with this little girl! HA! HA!!

Evan & Ally were really excited to come to the hospital and meet their new baby sister. Ally thinks she can be all rough-and-tumble with her (EEK!) and Evan is completely & utterly smitten with her! I've never seen him so sweet and gentle with anyone before; it's so heartwarming! <3

Emily was crying really hard and Evan kept laughing. I asked him, "Honey, why are you laughing? She's crying". He replied with, "She's just so cute when she cries, Mama!". Sooooo sweet!

As far as sleep goes, well, it sucks. It's everything we expected it to be. She sleeps a lot during the day and never wants to be put down to sleep at night. If we let her sleep in our arms at night, she'd probably sleep almost all night. But first of all, I can't sleep like that. Second of all (and most importantly) I'm really afraid she could fall out of my lap or something if I did fall asleep.

Oh well. At least since this is our third child, we knew what to expect. Even though we're terribly sleep deprived & a little more snippy with one another than normal, we're so very very happy that Emily's here with us now. She completes our family and I can't imagine our world without her already.

WOOPS! Apparently having 3 kiddos is eating up all my posting time...

LOL! Guess I should update my blog since Emily's 2-1/2 weeks old now, huh??? HA! HA!

Well, my induction was scheduled for Mon, Mar 15. They called me early in the morning (around 6am) and we were at the hospital by 7:15am.

They broke my water at 8:30am. Started pitocin at 9am. Checked me around 11:30-noon & reported that I was still at 3cm and 60% effaced (where I was when I arrived!).

They increased the pit a couple of times and by about 2:30pm I was finally at 4cm (still not much of an increase). But all of a sudden my contractions were coming a LOT closer together and MUCH more instense. At that point I received my lovely, lovely epidural. They checked me again at about 4:45pm and I was at 8cm! About 30-40 mins later I was fully dilated, effaced and ready to push. The doc came in and told me to push. I pushed and he said, "NOT SO HARD!!!". So I did one more tiny push and she was OUT!

I wailed and bawled like a fool for a long time. I am soooo overwhelmed and thankful to be blessed with our newest child. She's just beautiful and we're so incredibly in love!!!

Emily Ann was born on Mar 15 at 5:23pm. She was 7lbs 7oz & 20.5 inches long. She's got funny little white blonde peach fuzz hair just like her Mama used to have!

I'll post some pics from when she first arrived soon! And then I'll update the goings-on from the past 2-1/2 weeks after that.

I'm so amazingly thankful for our newest miracle. I thank God for her every day.