I went from this....
To this...
Introducing Miss Khloe Payton Gillespie!
I have a new love in my life. My little girl is almost 5 months old now and growing up right before my eyes. I never understood why it made parents sad that their kids were growing up until now. I want her to grow big and strong, but at the same time, I want to cherish my moments with her so tiny. I had a mini-meltdown about when I had to pack up her newborn clothes... Already, those clothes looked so tiny and I remember when she couldn’t even fit into them! Khloe was born on September 3- ironically, on Labor Day J My water broke on Sunday, September 2 and we headed to the hospital around 11:00 am.
20 hours and an epidural later, I was holding my 5lb 10oz princess (no, I wasn’t in pain for 20 hours… my water broke, but I wasn’t having contractions, so I was given meds to start my labor at 8:00 pm, pain started around 10:00 pm, so there was about 9 hours of real labor).
I’m back to work now and it’s pretty much the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I miss my little girl every day, but I still want a career of my own, so I’ve decided to try and do it all! With all the changes, I’ve had to kick the organization up a couple notches in my life! There’s no room for slacking anymore, I have to stick to a pretty tight schedule.
As any new parent will tell you, the first month was
ROUGH!!! Not only are you recovering
from giving birth, you have CRAZY hormones that make you want to cry over
stupid stuff. Plus a severe lack of
sleep…. When I went into the hospital to have her, I had already been awake since
3 am on Sunday morning and didn’t get to sleep until around 10:00 am on
Monday. And that was just about an hour
nap. The next two nights at the
hospital, we had the nurses keep her in the nursery, so we could get some rest,
but I was breastfeeding, so they brought the baby in every two hours to
feed. When we went home, I was so exhausted
I felt like I was in a constant daze.
And then the real work set in…. Khloe had her nights and days mixed up,
so she would sleep in the day and be up all night. It’s a whole new kind of tired… everyone
talks about how hard pregnancy is, but no one talks about how hard it is in
that first month after having the baby.
In addition to the exhaustion, I was so paranoid that she wasn’t getting
enough to eat (when you breastfeed, you can’t tell how much they’re eating), I
was paranoid that she was going to get sick, and plus I was in a ton of pain
from breastfeeding (yeah… no one tells you how much that hurts either…. OUCH!). I didn’t feel like anything would ever be
normal again, but after that first month a new sense of normalcy started to set
in. I was fully recovered from having her,
the crazy hormones were gone and breastfeeding didn’t hurt anymore. Khloe started sleeping at night and actually every
night now she sleeps for 4 hours, wakes up to eat and goes back to sleep for 5
more hours. We’re really lucky with
that! She’s been gaining weight steadily,
so I know she’s getting enough to eat and as far as worrying about her getting
sick, I still worry, but I've realized that every kid gets sick and it
actually helps them build their immunities.
We have a new schedule that we follow and life is good J I feel like I’m getting better at this mom
thing and I can actually do this! Now
that things are feeling not-so-overwhelming, I’m trying to work some things in
that I enjoy and one of those things is blogging. Blogging helps me to relax and gives me a
creative outlet. So I’ll be dropping by
whenever I get the chance. Now here are some pictures of the first 4 1/2 months of my little darling's life... let the oohing and ahhing begin! ;)
-Brooke
