One Month

Holy cow this month has flown by!  Ellie is such a joyful addition to our family.  I don't want to jinx anything, but it seems we have ourselves another super easy baby.

Our first days home were pretty smooth.  My pain level from the c-section was minimal.  I think it's because I was walking around so much at the hospital.  This was such an improvement over last time because I was much more active in taking care of Ellie.

I decided a long time ago that come hell or high water I was going to nurse this child.  Right after she was born, she was rooting away.  This was very encouraging.  She had a little trouble latching (I think she was just adjusting) so the nurse decided to give us nipple shield to help her train.  She right away latched on with it and was able to get things going that way.  Once we were home, I ditched the shield so that we wouldn't get attached to it.  No problem.  My milk came in pretty much right away too.  It has been so great.  As a mother who has both bottle fed and nursed babies, I'm here to say that there are pluses and minuses to each.  I definitely completely totally do not believe that I'm more attached to Ellie than Sophia because I'm nursing...even though I am literally attached for several hours a day :)  Pretty awesome not to have to buy formula, pretty painful in the beginning, pretty convenient to not need to pack up formula and bottles when we go out, pretty sad that Ken doesn't get to have as much involvement (I think he misses it, so we have given her some expressed milk from a  bottle a few times just to let him have that time).

After the first few days home she settled into her routine.  She eats around 10, then 2:30, then 5:30 - give or take an hour on each one.  She doesn't wake up crying, just making a little noise (JUST LIKE SOPHIA!!), she eats and goes right back to sleep.  During the day she eats every 3 hours or so, then cluster feeds at night.  I've also managed to start a pretty good frozen supply for if/when the time comes that I'm back and work and it's no longer working for us.  We'll see how it goes in August.

A few days after her homecoming we headed back to the doctor for her check-up.  She had been released from the hospital at about 7 lb 3 oz.  It was a pretty big drop from her birth weight but the doctor wasn't worried.  At her check-up she was back up to 7.8.  We had another weight check the following week and she was up again to 7.12.  I haven't weighed her at home but it's obvious she's eating enough and gaining weight.  She's completely and totally healthy!  Praise God!

Some other things about our Ellie:

• She loves to be on her tummy.
• She is full of sleep smiles and this past week has started smiling for real!  I've never seen such a smiley baby at such a young age.
• When she cries (more than Sophia did but still not very often) she WAILS!!  Big lungs!
• When she fusses, she sounds like she's snorting.  Hence the nickname - Snort Snort.  :)  Sorry, Elle. 
• Other nicknames - Ellie Belly, Elle Belle, Bright Eyes, Smiley, Ellies (by Ken) and Ellie Baby (by Sophia)
• She'll take a binky but doesn't totally love it.  She really wants to such on her hands.  I know it's way to early for her to develop a finger sucking habit, but I'm trying to avoid that.  I'm a big fan of the binkie as a self soothing tool.  I can take away a binkie next year, can't take away a finger.  Sophia is the official binkie-giver.  She took it upon herself to make that her job.  If Ellie starts to fuss, Sophia yells Binkie-Bink! and runs over to give it to her.  She loves to see Ellie looking so happy once she's got it.  
• Sophia is totally in love with her.  I couldn't have wished for their relationship to be any better.  She is curious of feeding, changing, and bathing.  She drags her stairs all over the place to help me out.  She will let us know right away if she hears Ellie crying "Mooooommmmy! Ellie is cryyyyyyying!"  If we're in the car and I can't get to Ellie, Sophia gets so upset until we are able to make her happy.  She says "Mommy has two beautiful babies." She is now and will be the bestest big sister ever :)
• Her eyes are still gray/blue.
• Several people have told me that she looks like my dad.  I don't know, but I think that would be so cool.
• A lot of her hair on top fell out.  She's rockin' the old man hair just like Soph did.  Hopefully that means she'll have awesome hair just like Sophia does.
• She does not love bath time.
• Her umbilical cord fell off at day 10 and we couldn't find it for hours.  We were terrified that Chuck ate it!  Finally we found it on the ground near him.  Yuck.

Here are some highlights of Ellie's first month:

First sponge bath.

So far, so good.

Nope, hate it.

One week old!

First real bath.  Ok, not sure about this...

Not my favorite thing...

Hate it! Hate it!

Two weeks old.

Sleep smiles!

Mother's Day dresses.

Three weeks old.

Four weeks old.  Big smiles!

One month!

Happy Birthday, Ellie!

Ellise "Ellie" Catherine Elflein
Born Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 9:34 am
8 pounds, 3 ounces
21 inches

What an incredible experience.

Let me just tell you, a planned C-Section is COMPLETELY different from an emergency one.  As I said in my last post, I was fortunate enough to select the date of Ellie's birth.  I can't even express the importance to me that I was able to choose April 23rd to be her birthday.  Before we knew the gender of the baby, we had toyed with the idea of naming a boy "Andrew" after my dad.  We could have still named a girl "Andi", but we had our hearts set on "Ellie" for so long.  Since naming the baby after him wasn't a good option for us, choosing that date was the perfect solution.

So here's your birth-story Miss Ellie.

Starting on Sunday (or so) I had started having somewhat more regular and intense contractions.  Not totally regular and more uncomfortable than painful.  Monday, they grew with intensity and frequency. I downloaded a contraction timing App and as it turns out, my contractions were about 5-7 minutes apart all day.  The doctor had told me that I only needed to come in if they got to 5 minutes or less regularly for 2 hours.  So, I kept track all night but they never got under the 5 minute mark for more that 20 minutes or so.  One thing was for sure, I had all the signs and symptoms of early labor.  Apparently, Ellie was destined to come on the 23rd regardless.  This was soooo awesome to me.  That is one thing I always felt like I missed out on with Sophia's birth and I knew I would miss out again this time.  That feeling of knowing the baby was coming soon.

That night and in the early morning hours of the 23rd I cherished every last minute of being pregnant, knowing that this would be the last time I would ever do this.  I tried to memorize every little movement that she made.

The next morning, my surgery was scheduled for 9:30.  This meant we had to be at the hospital to check in at 7:30.  We all got up and got ready then took Sophia to Camille's house.  She would stay with her until we gave her the go ahead to bring her to the hospital.  Sophia definitely knew something was up.  She was very attached to me and didn't want to let me go.  We told her we were going to go get Ellie.  She was crying when we left which is very rare when she goes to her grandma's house.

We got to the hospital and checked in.  I got into the yucky gown and hopped in bed.  The nurses came through and hooked me up to a fetal monitor and asked me a million questions.  Side Note:  That weekend before, I did something REALLY stupid.  We were outside in the back yard and I decided to lift up my shirt for a few minutes, exposing my tummy to the sun.  I had it out for about 20 minutes or so.  This was enough to SCORCH my stomach!  I've never had sunburn so bad!  By Tuesday, the pain was gone but it was still red.  Every nurse and doctor that came through was shocked to see my tummy and thought I was having some type of reaction.  How embarrassing.

At about 9:00 we were ready to go, ahead of schedule.  They took me back into the OR and got me ready while Ken got dressed and my mom went into the waiting room where she would be able to see Ellie once she came out.  After a few minutes (which felt like hours) of prepping, Ken was finally allowed to come in and the real party started.  This time I was so much more alert and aware of everything going on.  A bunch of tugging and pulling.  Lots of "pressure" as they call it.  Then finally, they told me to brace myself and with a TON of pressure on my rib cage, out she came!  SCREAMING bloody murder!!  Ha!  So different from Soph!  Ken mouthed the words "She's BIG!" to me and I started to cry.  They cleaned her up a bit and swaddled her then brought her over for me to see.  My reaction was exactly as it was with Sophia.  "I know you."  No surprise, not completely overwhelmed.  Just perfectly content and comfortable.  The one thing I remember striking me and making me chuckle was her big chubby cheeks.

Ellise "Ellie" Catherine Elflein
Born April 23, 2013 at 9:34 am
8 lbs 3 oz, 21 inches
"As I expected...Practically perfect in every way."

They got her cleaned up and she and Ken went to the nursery while they tugged and jerked on me some more then finally stitched me up.  They rolled me back into my L&D room to wait for Ellie to come in.  When I got there, my mom came right in and told me the measurements.  Shortly after, Ken rolled her into our room.  The nurses grabbed her up for a mandatory (and fantastic) hour of skin-to-skin time with Mommy.  After that we got to attempt nursing.  They had told me that she was rooting already so I was eager to get started.  I was absolutely determined to nurse her.  She was off to a great start but obviously it would take some time.  A little while later Clark arrived at the hospital.  Then they went to get some lunch and Ken and I spent some time alone with our girl.  We called Camille to let her know that we were ready for Sophia.

Shortly after my mom and clark got back, I hear Sophia's voice coming down the hallway.  When they came through the door, she had the biggest (and most nervous) smile going from ear to ear.  She kept smiling as she walked though the room and they placed her up onto my bed with me and Ellie.  I asked Soph if there was something she wanted to say to her (since she had been telling me for weeks that she wanted to tell her "Nice to meet you!")  Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, she said it.  Seriously, I was overloaded with love and happiness.

That day I felt remarkably good.  I was a little light headed and was shivering a bunch but no pain.  I was even able to walk around that evening.  My mom took Sophia home to our house and brought her back and forth to the hospital.

The first night, Ellie slept and slept.  Finally at around 6 we woke her up to feed her.  Come to find out Ken and I both got up a couple of times in the night to make sure she was breathing!  We hoped this was a sign that she would be a good sleeper :)

We stayed in the hospital one more night and were able to go home Thursday, April 25th.  They had actually talked of letting us go home the next day (scary!) but her billiruben numbers were a touch high so they decided to run the test again the next day.  Everything came back fine but they instructed us to keep her in indirect sunlight for a few minutes each day just to be sure.

Once we got home, everything was totally natural.  My mom stayed through Saturday to help out with Sophia.  I have to say it was AWESOME to have her there to give Sophia 100% attention during this time.  I never had to worry that she was feeling left out or lacking attention.  I think it really helped with her transition.

And here are some pictures from the glorious new addition to our happy little family. (Sorry, they're a bit out of order for now)

We are just so in love with her.  Our family is truly complete now.  I couldn't be any happier!


Another side-note: Right before Ellie's birthday, the NBA playoffs began.  The playoffs run very late each night so starting with our first night in the hospital, we watched and watched and watched the basketball playoffs.  During this time, I TOTALLY fell in love with the Inside the NBA crew on TBS. Charles Barkley and Shaq are freaking hilarious.  The night Ellie was born, for some reason, Shaq started saying this ridiculous thing about Chris "Birdman" Anderson.  "Birdman Birdman!!" Over and over.  If it wasn't so funny, it would be so annoying.  I'll always think of that when I think of Ellie's birth!

Here it is if you want to see it!

http://youtu.be/IYkQb4DwzVQ