the aftermath

The days of scheduled and timed posts may be gone from this blog, but I would prepare yourselves for a lot of baby photo spam, I mean I have to put the 100 photos I take each day somewhere!  So I thought I would write an incredibly sappy and incoherent update about our first week at home with Claire.  I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders, but bear with me.  These are snippets I jotted down between nursing, rocking, and attempting to feed myself in between, some of it with some pathetic one handed typing.

Loving your child…..it is some heavy stuff.  The best way for me to describe my feelings towards Claire would probably be to say that her importance to me is somewhere parallel to oxygen.  Sometimes when she breathes out I just want to put my mouth level to hers and inhale her exhales…..okay and now i sound insane, but that's a real thought i had Wednesday night.  

I was telling Darrell that same night, I had so much time to adjust to the fact that his happiness, health, safety were of tantamount importance to the same factors in my life, but Claire came in with a vengeance-8 lbs of life altering baby love.  When eventually that fact hit me and I was on the verge of a scary emotional meltdown, I realized that all I needed to do to move past it was hold Claire, because she makes everything better.  

After a fraught first night at home (where we each slept approximately 1.5 hours because we let her sleep all day, so she wanted to eat alllllll night) she gifted us with night two, when she slept the whole night except for three one hour feedings - and when I say all night, I mean from 9 until about 5:30.  I kissed her all over when we got up that morning - it was like she knew we needed it.  She came close to that last night, waking up only 3 times between 9:30 pm & 4:30 am, and then getting a bit fussy after that, when again my sainted husband took her on an early morning walk in the sling.  The sling = Claire's happy place, especially when her daddy is wearing it.  

After these past two nights, we've committed to every 3 hour feedings even if she was sleeping because apparently that is Claire’s current magic timing for actually dozing off long enough in between that we can get some rest.  Although you know what makes it hard to rest?  Missing your baby because she’s sleeping and you just want to hold her constantly, all the time, forever and ever.  Every time a day ends, usually around 8 pm,  and the summer sun starts to go down I may or may not burst into tears because it’s one.  more.  day.  over. with our newborn, perfect, teeny tiny, cuddly baby.

I already reminisce about her first day, second day.  Sometimes when I’m holding her LOOKING at her, I’m also on my phone looking at pictures of her.  I catch Darrell doing it all the time as well.  I feel like it's my job to memorize her.  I take pictures of her ear, her foot, her eyes every day because they'll never look like that again.  Not that I could forget, likely no mother could, but it's nice to be able to see and remember, even if it's heartbreaking.  

I know there will be wonderful days ahead - I look forward to when her little arms can reach for me, when she can smile & laugh.  But there is a definite melancholy in knowing that these newborn days will never be again - I will never be a first time mom, on the first day with my firstborn, learning how to do it all with her together.  So I'm going to go and stare at her face some more and try to make today tick by more slowly.