Franklin and Hannah

Their first picture together - he crawled up on the couch to lay next to me as she was feeding so I took the opportunity to prop her up against him. He didn't even flinch. I see the two of them being like those emails that get forwarded around. A little baby all curled up on a 200lb dog :)

What do I do with myself all day?

I make milk, I nurse Hannah, I change her, I soothe her, I play with her, and I love every minute of it! So far, I've been lucky to get a shower in every day, most days I can even straighten up around the house. 

Some days she feeds every hour, some days she feeds every two hours - so there is a lot of time spent hanging on my boob. I've been doing as much reading on breast feeding as I can and our doula has been a good source of information too. Babies who nurse, don't get as full as babies who eat formula and food so they want to eat more frequently. Sometimes it can get exhausting when I don't feel like I've gotten enough sleep. But then I look at her and I realize how much I really do enjoy being her source of nutritious milk. Yesterday I was actually able to get a crock pot meal made and was pretty proud of myself to have supper ready for Lance when he got home. I know he appreciated it.

So what I do with myself all day is take care of a baby. I have realized how much I love taking care of her, my inner nurturer has come out and now I know what others mean when they say they would do ANYThing for their kids.

All by our own-selves

Hannah and I not only survived our first week home alone together, we excelled! Okay, maybe not excelled, but certainly did pretty good. Monday was tough though, there was no Lance to hand her off to for the 'your turn' time after feedings. It only took a few days for me to figure things out and get some semblance of a routine down. I can't really use the word routine yet though because she is still learning. Sometimes she naps in the mornings, sometimes she naps in the afternoons - but there is always a good chunk of time where she doesn't want to nap but would rather have some talk time. We look at each other and I tell her stories, and then she smiles and coos back. She seems to have a lot to say.

We had a visit from Grandma Carol on Thursday and she brought us lunch! It's always nice when people bring food :) But Hannah is definitely getting to know her Grandma Carol, she has seen her several times already. She won't get to see her other Grandmas for quite a few weeks yet though.

Yesterday, our doula Amanda, came over for a bit of a follow-up, see how we're doing visit. She seemed pretty pleased with how Hannah is growing and how we seem to be doing, so that was good to hear. Funny part about that visit was that we had put Eleanor away and left Franklin out. That's usually what we do with the dogs, Franklin is just more calm and friendly with visitors, so he gets to stay out and say hello. Lance and him were sitting on one couch, Amanda and I were on the other one. I'd passed Hannah over to Amanda and she was holding her talking to her and Hannah was loving it. A couple times though, Hannah would let out a bit of a squawk and Lance said each time, Franklin tried to get off the couch to go see what Amanda was doing to his baby! So far, it has been Eleanor who has shown the protective interest in the baby, not really Franklin. So, that was kinda neat - he would never aggressively go after anybody, but just to see that he wanted to go help his squawking baby was cool. 

Hannah is going to grow up with some very great animals. Eleanor likes to give her a little gentle kiss every now and then and Franklin likes to put his nose right up to her and sniff. I'm so glad things are going well with the dogs and baby. They are, after all, our babies too!

2 weeks and counting

I missed the 2 week date, but am pretty close. Hannah is 2 weeks and 3 days old. It's amazing how quickly time flies...even though all it seems like I'm doing it pulling out and putting away the boobs, the days and nights get away from me before I know it. I know some of the seasoned mothers are able to nurse and do things with their hands at the same time - that multi-tasking maneuver will take me awhile to achieve. In fact, there are times when I think I could use an extra hand just to keep her latched on and her flailing limbs out of the way.

Hannah had her 2 week check up on Friday and she weighed 8lbs, 12 ounces. So she gained 8 pounds in the week since her last doctor appointment! That makes me feel great because it means she is nursing well :) One of the tricky parts of nursing is to make sure they're gaining enough weight and that was one of my concerns, but looks like we're doing okay there. Doctor said everything else with her looks excellent, no problems, no concerns. 

Lance goes back to work tomorrow and I'm pretty sad about that. It has been so great having him home with us all day. Partly because it's been a comfort knowing there is another body in the house if I need help with anything. But, mostly because our new little family has had this time to bond together. 

1 week old

Our little daughter is one week old today. How strange to hear myself say 'daughter'! This week has absolutely flown by, I can't believe it. It really does just feel like it's been a couple days.

We came home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon and put in place our previously discussed "lock down". Talking with other new mommies and doing some readings, some lockdowns can go on for as long as a week or more. We decided to just go with 2 days. Thinking back, I think I would have been okay with a whole week :) We took those 2 days though to try and establish some sense of routine or at least figure out what we were doing.

I think we did and are doing great. Really all she does is eat, poop, and sleep but she does all of those things aLOT. Lance and I both have spent pretty much this whole week in jammy pants, it's just easier. We decided to nurse, so I've been trying to get that figured out and under control. I think between Hannah and I, we're getting it worked out quite nicely. During the day, it will vary from every 1-2 hours she feeds. At night, sweet little thing that she is, will vary from 3-4 hours between feedings. My inner mommy has come out and while I sleep heavy and hard, it is also a light enough sleep that I can hear her rooting around before she wakes up so I know it's time to scoop her up again. I may wake up a little grudgingly at first, but as soon as I see her pretty little face looking at me all I can do is coo at her.

The during the day nursings though make it a little tricky to do things. I've got a really small window of time to do things before she is hungry again. If she's fallen asleep, I get the full 2 hours. If she is kept awake I only get about 1 hour. Already I've figured that out! :) 

And speaking of, my window of time is now up-

She got born!

I haven't blogged for quite awhile. Mainly because there towards the end, all I could think of was how uncomfortable and miserable I was. Nobody needs to hear me whine about that. I went in for my regular OB appointment on Dec. 24th and the doc said I was still just dialated to 2, no change. I waited until he left the room, but then I lost it a little bit. I was really really hoping for a change and that we could get this baby out. Lance has become an expert soother throughout my pregnancy, I am a very lucky woman to have him :) 

So, it was Christmas Eve, we were tired of just waiting and feeling kind of bored so we thought we'd just exchange gifts a day early. I'm glad we did because as it turns out, we were quite busy on Christmas!! I'd written this up on her baby page, so I'm just going to be lazy and copy/paste it here. It's more of a blog post anyway:

Behind the name, Hannah Louisa Ruby Koch:

We had chosen her name many months ago but would not share the name with anyone. She is a lucky girl to have two very meaningful middle names. Louisa is for my Dad who passed away just a couple weeks before I found out I was pregnant. Ruby is for Lance’s Grandma who passed away last summer. Hannah’s first name is just one Lance and I decided on because we really liked it. Looking back through our family trees, it is also a name that has cropped up generations ago.

Her birth:

Hannah was born at 2:19 p.m. on December 25th 2008. She weighed 8 lbs, 4 ounces and was 19 inches long. A perfectly round head and no bruising, a beautiful little girl! 

I woke up Christmas morning around 7 feeling a little off. It took me awhile to realize, I was having contractions, and I was having them every 2 minutes. Lance called the doula right away, she suggested I drink a bunch of water, move around, eat some breakfast and let her know of any changes. That maybe these were fake contractions and we’d see how it goes. I drank a bunch of water and decided these were the real thing and we’d better prepare for a day full of labor, so I got into the shower, thinking I should be clean for whatever the day brings - Lance called our doula back because the contractions were still at every two minutes and getting more and more strong. I was beginning to howl a little. As he was talking to her, I was walking the hallway, breathing. Franklin was very concerned with what was wrong with me and every time I’d stop because of a contraction, he’d position himself in front of me so I could lean forward on him. When I’d start walking again, he’d come up along side me for a little extra support. 

When Lance got off the phone with the doula he said she recommended we head into the hospital and she’d meet us there. I continued huffing around while he gathered up all the things we’d prepared for this very day. We got to the hospital around 8am and I was definitely feeling the contractions, they were strong. The nurses checked me in, saw I was dilated to 4 and gave me a room. My contractions never varied from every 2 minutes, so I was laboring quickly and strongly right off the bat. Amanda (our doula) got there and between her and Lance they were a great help in keeping me focused and away from the epidural or pain meds. The doctor wanted to break my water for me, but I resisted because I didn’t want any interventions if at all possible.

It wasn’t too long after that though that the doctor came back and told me I had pre-eclampsia and had it severely. Normally, if women have it they’ll have 1 of the problems associated with it, lucky me - I had 2. He said I would be okay, but that we’d need to move things along as quickly as possible. He broke my water, and I continued to labor. Around 1-ish, I really started feeling the need to push. I was dilated to 9.5 and they wouldn’t let me yet, so I had to try and stop by body from naturally pushing. Way easier said than done. Thinking back on some of the noises I made, that hospital HAS to have sound proof walls. I remember just screaming in agony and hearing Lance and Amanda trying to bring me back to calm breathing. Sometimes they were able to reign me in, other times I just had to scream. Not once did I curse out anyone like in the movies though :) Finally I was able to push and after 40 minutes of pushing, out popped little Hannah. I had a surprisingly quick labor and delivery, but given my condition it was best. 

They took Hannah away immediately because she had pooped inside me and so they were concerned about the poop being in her mouth, nose, etc. so I wasn’t able to hold her right away. But while they worked on her, the doctor continued to work on me. The placenta wasn’t coming out but massive amounts of blood were. I really don’t know how long it took him, but it seemed like forever for him to get all the random pieces of placenta out. Finally, I was able to hold our baby and everything I’d just gone through was put into perspective. To realize that little baby girl had just come OUT of me....whoa.

Hannah was doing wonderfully, no complications, no problems at all. Unfortunately, they couldn’t say the same for me. I was put on a Magnesium drip to help repair my liver and get my platelet count back up to where it should be. Mine was 40,000 and it is supposed to be 150,000. As the magnesium took hold, I could feel reality slipping away. I became more and more tired and weak. I was able to eat a little but chewing became so tiring. It was about this time that we had our first visitors to the hospital. One of the proud sets of Grandparents came to see their first grandchild. Their visit didn’t last too long but long enough that I was worn out by the end of it.

I had a rough night and next day. They wouldn’t remove the Magnesium until 24 hours on it had passed and it was another 12 hours before I really felt able enough to walk and move around again. The doctors were pleased enough with my recovery that we were released Saturday afternoon. I still have to go back for further testing to make sure I am A-OK, but am just delighted to be home again and with a beautiful little girl to boot.