Three Weeks Old

Well, Amy turned three weeks yesterday. How time flies! Her umbilical cord stump fell off on Sunday morning and Amy has already had two baths. The first one was a little rushed as she was hungry and screaming most of the time, but the second time went much better as she had just been fed and only cried at the very end when her hair was being washed. I weighed her after her bath and she is 10lbs 8oz. So she has gained almost exactly 2lbs in three weeks. I'll have to figure out if that is normal or not, I think I read somewhere that babies gain 2/3rds of a pound per week for the first few weeks and then it goes down to 1/2lb per week for a while. If that is true, then I guess Amy is right on target. She still fits into some newborn items but they no longer have much growing room left and will soon be packed up, sniff sniff.

Amy also had her first bottle yesterday. She was sleeping when it was time to feed her and I had a small amount of expressed breastmilk in the fridge that I needed to use up, so I just pumped and made a bottle for her. She then woke up and my mom got to feed her the bottle while I put Charles and Ryan to bed. She did very well but even though the nipple was marked slow flow, she drank it in record time, something like six minutes! Oh well, I guess I no longer have to worry about her adjusting to a bottle - if it has milk in it, she'll drink it!!! :-)

Relaxing

Well, so far, Amy loves to eat, burp, sleep and dirty diapers. Yep, nothing really exciting to report yet. In fact today, I think she sleept almost the entire day. I often had to wake her up for her feedings and even then, she ate with her eyes closed. About the only time you'll hear her cry is when you change her diaper or outfit. She doesn't like being cold or woken up!

The pediatrician couldn't fit in a visit today, so we have an appoitment for tomorrow instead, and were able to stay at home today. We did fit in a walk around the neighborhood to give mom some excercise and Amy some fresh air and indirect sunlight. We tried out her new stroller and she loved it. She also loves her new bouncy seat that vibrates. Thank you Aunt Leslie and Uncle Nick. With the vibrate on or off, she loves being bundled up and strapped in to the bouncy seat.

Here are some pictures taken today (5 days old), enjoy!

Welcome Amy Claire Smith

We went to the hospital at 10AM on Wednesday morning for a scheduled c-section at noon. Everything went as planned, the doctor was held up at her office and running a little late so the c-section was started around 1PM instead of noon, but the extra wait wasn't that bad. Seth was with Cara while grandparents and big brothers waited out in the lobby. At exactly 1:18PM, the doctor announced "it's a girl!" and we were both so surprised and extreemly happy that we had tears in our eyes. It was most definitely a special moment that we will remember forever.

Amy Claire Smith was born on Wednesday, April 7th, at 1:18PM. She weighed a healthy 8lbs 9oz, was 20 inches long. Cara and Amy are both doing very very well. Amy seems to be doing much better with the jaundice than either Charles or Ryan and we may not have to make all of the trips back and forth to the lab for bloodwork and visits with the pediatrician for the first week or two, as we had to for Charles and Ryan. Amy is eating very well and sleeping most of the time. In fact, so far, she appears to be a very calm baby!!! Her older brothers ask about her all the time, especially if they can't see her or don't know where she is. Charles just loves staring at Amy and often says that she is so beautiful! And Ryan likes to touch her (feet, nose, ears, everything!!!), in fact, he'll stop what he's doing and just out of the blue, go over and "have to touch Amy". :-)

Okay, that's it for now, but let's just say that the camera is working overtime and I'll be posting more pictures soon.