Brance, Lauren & Haddie

Ethel Ryan a beloved member of my church and an adopted member of my family came to pay little Haddie a visit today.  Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers passed away during my childhood and Ethel lovingly has stepped into that void.  We are so blessed to have her in our life and so is little Haddie.

It’s hard to believe our little girl will be a week old tomorrow. We’ve only had her at home for two days. She’s starting to get her days and nights straightened out a little bit. I actually slept through the night last night without being awakened by a screaming baby.

I love it when she’s awake in one of her quite alert times. She’s got these big eyes and just looks around soaking everything in. It’s so fun to watch her and speculate as to what’s going on behind those eyes.

She’s very strong for a newborn. At six days old she is able to lift her own head and look around. And she rolled over, from her back to her side, on her own this morning.

We’ve got this little bouncy chair for her to sit in. It’s in the living room and she likes to sleep in it.

Okay, so this probably seems like an odd time to post.  Typically I’m not a night owl at all… in fact I wouldn’t say that night is my best or brightest time, if you know what I mean .  But it is amazing how something around 7 pounds can change you… especially your sleeping habits.  I really should be in bed now fast asleep with the rest of the world, as things have went much better tonight for the first night and Haddie is actually asleep in her bassinet after her first night feeding.  But I’m wide awake and decided to check and see what Brance has done with our blog (you did a great job honey – thank you for posting all those pics!) and felt an urge to write.  

As many babies do, Haddie came out of the womb with her days and nights mixed up.  The entire 5 days and nights that we were in the hospital and our first day and night back home Haddie was sleeping all day and fussy and wanting to be held at night.  Several times this actually ended up being a blessing in disguise at the hospital.  For example, on Thursday the doctor decided that he would not let me leave the hospital until I had a bowel movement, something I hadn’t had since before my surgery on Sunday.  Thankfully she slept peacefully all day on Thursday while the hospital tried out all the remedies they had on me in one day!  But now that we are back home, being awake most the night and asleep all day just isn’t working for mommy and daddy.  With nanna’s help we were able to encourage more awake time yesterday during the day and encouraged a good long feeding before we laid our little one down for her night’s sleep.  Seems to be working well… I guess I’ll have to let you know after a few nights if we are still having success.  But it is working tonight and I’m so thankful.  She is sleeping so peacefully and we haven’t had a crying episode tonight, which I’m sure our neighbors will appreciate as we live in an apartment complex.

Well, I guess that is all for tonight.  I’m not going to get much sleep at all before Haddie’s next feeding if I don’t head off to bed.

Goodnight and thank you for all your thoughts and prayers while Haddie and I were in the hospital.  I know that is what helped me through all the difficult little road bumps we faced.  God is good and prayer is powerful.

Under the Mercy,

Lauren

Here’s a set of photos from the last day or two at the hospital and the first day we brought Haddie home.

Here are some pictures of Haddie with her grandparents, her aunt Holly, and her mommy. She’s so cute. She and Lauren are both feeling much better and are resting right now.