Surviving the first couple of weeks

Emma was two weeks old yesterday and we are just starting to come out of "survival mode." You really do forget how tired that you are these first couple weeks. Emma took a little while to figure out what was night and what was day, but I THINK we are starting to work through that. She still will sometimes want to stay awake after a middle of the night feed though...not fun. THANK GOODNESS for my mother. For the first week she came every day and stayed all day. She was there in time for Abigail to wake up, so that I could get some much needed extra sleep. This week she came every morning and stayed through lunch usually. We have had WONDERFUL meals brought to us by our Sunday School class and friends and I haven't had to cook at all. Thank y'all! What a blessing and treat.

Emma is doing just great. From what I can tell, she is thriving and growing and has already gotten too big for the smallest of the small pajama's that we have. She is nursing well and getting adjusted to my large amounts of milk. I have also started to adjust as well. Unfortunately I got mastitis this week. But I caught it early and got on some antibiotics and I am just about over it. Nursing, pumping, massaging and getting up at night when you are in pain and running a 101 fever is NOT fun. I got it because I simply had too much milk for Emma and she couldn't drink it all. Sweet girl. She gave it her best effort.

Abigail LOVES Emma and wants to hold her every waking moment, which is somewhat of a challenge for me. Again, thank goodness for my Mom being here to distract her and do things with her. Next week I will start taking on the mothering of two children on my own, but thankfully my mother is just 5 minutes away. ;)

Emma nurses every three hours in the day and every four hours at night. She nurses between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. and then wakes up to nurse again between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. Then again around 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. What I just described is an IDEAL night...it doesn't always go quite like that. She's a doll and we look at her and Abigail and can't believe that we have these two beautiful girls to raise.