Cherry Blossom Heart: Abby: Weeks 6 & 7 (Mommy is playing catch up)

Week 6

I seriously can't believe we are at 6 weeks. What's more is that I can't believe this is my last week home with her. Booooo. I'm not looking forward to going back to work next week. I hold back tears just thinking about it. I'm planning on investing in a couple of boxes of tissues to bring with me and I'm warning Nana Rose to be on standby all day for random phone calls of Mommy checking in.

There isn't a whole lot to share this week. It was a nice quiet week with Abby. Mommy had a bit of a breakdown though. I guess I finally pushed myself to my limit with lack of sleep. I found myself with a massive migraine and feeling weak and run down. I was pretty much crying at anything all day. Poor Abby had to deal with her crazy over tired mom. Abby was fine, but Mommy learned the hard was that she needed more sleep and couldn't continue to work on a couple of hours a night for 6 weeks and expect to be able to function. Once Daddy got home he took Abby for a bit and made Mommy get some rest. I got an hour power nap in and felt like great. My headache was gone when I woke up and even had enough energy to go for a walk that night with Abby and Daddy. That night Abby slept like a champ which helped Mommy even more. Daddy stayed up with Abby after her nighttime feeding until she fell asleep. He said he put her down around 12. She slept until 3:40! She woke up, fed, was changed and went right back to sleep until 7. I woke up that morning feeling like a new woman. It's like she knew I just really needed a good night's sleep.

This week her sleeping has been getting better at nights. She is starting to get into a routine of 3-4 hour blocks of sleep instead of 2 hour blocks. It makes me excited, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much. She is still eating about every 2 1/2 hours during the day, but stretching that out at night.

Abby did have some gas issues this week. Before I go any further I need to make sure people reading this know that as a parent, your topics tend to change from what they were pre-child. Before having Abby conversations were never really about things like poop, but now it is just an everyday conversation starter. Never did I think talking about poop would consume so much of my conversations, but I guess that is what happens when you become a parent. You talk about poop.

So anyway....Abby hadn't had a dirty diaper since she filled one on Wednesday night right before our walk. She has a tendency to have tiny little dirty diapers until she releases the mother load so this wasn't too far from normal. However, after that massive unloading she didn't go again for three days. This of course was a bit of a worry for us and that is just not normal and she was extra fussy, gassy and tooting like crazy. After 36 hours of no poop I began to get concerned. By 48 hours we had called the 24 hour nurse line to see what we could do for her. I had tried giving her a warm bath to see if that would help and although she loved it, no poop. The nurse gave us a list of things to try including the bath, white pear juice with water, a q-tip with lubricant (yes, it was to put up her butt) and if all those failed we were to try a suppository. Well, after a day of trying all that was on the list it was down to the suppository. I will admit, I was so nervous. I think it was worse for me than it was for her. Having said that, she did really well with it and sure enough it worked. I think we went through about 6 diapers. Daddy said it was like a volcano. (Just less violent) We all went to bed Sunday night feeling much better about the situation thinking she was all better. Well, Monday rolled around and back to no poop, fussing, pushing and lots of gas. Sigh.....and now we have today. Still no poop since the volcano and fussing, pushing, lots of gas and an uncomfortable baby. We ended up going to the doctor's office (which was technically the beginning of week 7) to get checked out to make sure everything was ok, but once there we were told that it is actually common for breastfed babies to go up to a week sometimes without having a dirty diaper. (information that would have been helpful when we were calling the nurse line so Mommy and Daddy would stop worring) Given that information and a clean bill of health from the doctor Mommy and Abby headed home. Since then we haven't had any more issues, but part of it could be that we know she's ok if she skips a day or two before giving us a nice present.

Week 7

This was a pretty busy week for Abby. After the doctor's office this week Mommy and Abby went to meet up with Daddy for work and they took a trip into Mommy's work to meet her co-workers. It was pretty funny. Mommy managed to sneak into her office, but I think all women must have a baby radar because before I could get Abby out of her car seat half my department was already in my office ohhhing and awwwing over her. Needless to say Abby was a bit overwhelmed for a minute because she had just woken up and was hungry. After a quick feeding and diaper change we made our way around to say hi to everybody and Abby was a ham! Smiles, and stories for everybody. :)

Come Thurdsay we had the last of our big introductions! Uncle Ryan was finally here to meet Abby and he brought his girlfriend Kristine too!

This is Uncle Ryan meeting Abby for the first time. And let's not forget about Nana! Nana literally came into the house and took Abby who was sleeping on Mommy. No warning, or hi to Mommy, just straight to Abby. (I figured that was going to happen.)

Reunited and it feels so good....

That weekend we took a trip up to wine country! Starting her young....on the long drives that is.... ;)

We went up to Frogtown. It was a bit hazy, but still a nice day. Kristine had never been to a winery so Ryan wanted to take her. Abby met Craig and Sydney (the owners) who were thrilled to finally meet her. Although, I think Craig may have been more excited to know Mommy could drink wine again. Mommy and Daddy always took photos together on the deck of Frogtown so on this trip, of course we had to get our first family photo together!

And Mommy just couldn't resist some snuggle time.

We also took another big trip that weekend to the Atlanta Zoo. Nana has those pictures so maybe I'll add them later. Abby did great. It was a long day, but we had a great time. Overall it was a great week, but Mommy was dreading Monday as it was back to work for me. :( I don't think I let her go that night when we got home. I just wanted time to stand still forever. But, such is reality that we need money and come to find out, my work won't pay me to sit at home with my daughter and not do work....figures.

So....here are more pictures of Abby....just because I know you love 'em! I know I do!

Pretty girl back from the Zoo!