Sometimes it's not so easy

Confession: I have not enjoyed myself 100% of the time since Kate came home. I can admit this because I know I'm not the only one who has ever brought home a new baby and at times was miserable from being tired or overwhelmed. A couple of nights ago we had a marathon breastfeeding session and Kate decided to eat for four hours, until 3 AM. Seriously. I was not happy nor overjoyed by that time. In fact I was in tears from being so sleepy and having no clue why this child insisted on going from breast to breast without sleeping. It was a drastic change from the previous 6 nights where she'd been sleeping for 3 hours at a time. I remained hopeful that the next night we'd be back to our 3 hour routine, only to be disappointed when she decided to have another marathon feeding, keeping me up until 3:40 that time.
I made Nick flip through some of our books and do some internet research while I was trying to hold my eyes open only to have him tell me that everything he could find said this would happen sometimes and there was nothing I could do but offer her the breast. If that's what she wanted, that's what I had to do. I don't think being told this was normal helped at all. In fact it just made me feel more hopeless because I realized there was nothing to do but stay up and feed her.

Last night I decided we weren't doing another one of those sitting-in-the-recliner-all-hours marathons. So to bed she went with me. Now I know some people have issues with babies sleeping in Mom and Dad's bed for safety reasons. Even Nick was against it, but I told him last night that she was sleeping with me so I could feed her in bed and he was not to say a single word about it. You know what? It worked out just fine. She actually slept quite a bit. I was able to feed her while laying in bed more comfortably and even though I wasn't asleep the whole time, I felt a lot more rested. We're still trying to get the hang of feeding while laying down. It's a bit different so I think the longer we do this the better we'll get. I definitely felt better this morning. For the moment we are a co-sleeping family. I don't intend for this to go on forever, but as long as we get sleep I'm willing to live with it for now.For an update on me, physically I am doing great. Recovery from a c-section has been far easier than I anticipated. I haven't had to take any pain medication since day 2 after coming home, and I'm getting around really well. Obviously I can feel that I'm still recovering and am limited in my movements and what-not, but as far as pain goes I have been feeling great. My scar has healed nicely as well.

I've also dubbed myself The Biggest Loser. When I found out I was pregnant I told myself over and over "I'm not going to be one of those people who gains 60 pounds while pregnant", and then I proceeded to do exactly that. I know. A lot of my weight gain came in the form of water. I swear, my legs, ankles, shins, calves, and hands have been unrecognizable to me for months now. Even my doctor noted that he thought a great deal of my weight gain was water and there wasn't much I could do about it. I hung in there though. I wouldn't have made it through the days without the many foot and leg rubs from Nick, I can tell you that much. Since having Kate I am proud to say that after 1 week I had dropped 28 pounds, and after week 2 I was down another 14. This morning I weighed and have lost another 6, so I'm at 48 pounds gone since Kate arrived 18 days ago. Take that Bob and Jillian!

Oh, and today we finally broke into the world of cloth diapers. We had some disposables that we were using up for her first couple of weeks and mostly until her stump fell off. Now that we're through both of those, we can put her in her super cute cloth diapers and my laundry fun can start. Doesn't she look adorable? This is a Fuzzibunz diaper.