Welcome Baby - Our First Week Home
Love this photo taken just a few hours before heading home! Thank you Lily - Lily Ro Photography for coming to the hospital the day after baby was born to snap a few memories for us!
It’s almost been a week home with baby Maya and life seems to be going so fast and so slow at the same time. I’m slowly breathing in that newborn deliciousness, yet the fact that she is nearly a week old seems impossible. It seems so surreal when Mila sweetly comes up and sings to her baby sister that “it’s me and you together.” The moments are tender and I feel like my heart has burst wide open. My heart is so open, almost as if it wants to just swallow these days up and hold on to them forever. The fact that Maya is my third child and I’m only now experiencing two of my children interacting with each other is something my heart can barely handle with out melting. I believe my son Ryan is all around us and his relationship with his sisters is something that can’t truly be explained. Ryan is everywhere. I’ve always imagined how he’d be with his little sister Mila, craving to really see them together physically. Something I’ll never get to see. However, being able to watch Ryan’s little sisters meet each other and interact is something I’ll never get over. I see them together and I just can’t believe it. I feel so grateful for the chance to mother these three children of mine. Now I imagine Ryan scooping them both up in a bear hug. Or even when they get older, slamming his door to keep the two girls out of his room ;) I love my kids more than anything in the world, whether they are here physically or not.
As incredible it is to bring home a newborn, there comes a bit pain. There have been some darker moments too within our first week home. Adjusting to anything new is difficult and each one of us, even the baby, is adjusting to our new family life. Above anything we are all exhausted. Mila seems to be seeking attention by throwing more tantrums than normal when asked to do simple things like brush her teeth or pick up her toys. One morning Mila started screaming so loud she woke up the baby after I had just put her down. That was a wild experience for me. When both girls cried at the same time my body and brain sort of turned into mush. The baby was screaming in her crib, Mila was screaming in the hallway. I was trying to sooth Mila and get her to quiet down which only seemed to get her to scream louder. She was upset that I was laying down while the baby was sleeping. To which she remedied by being loud enough to wake the baby. That was a messy moment at 7am. We recovered though.
Mila loves her baby sister, she just isn’t too excited about having to share her parents with her I think. The other night Mila was serving up some really awful attitude before bed that turned into a giant ordeal. Mila was screaming, I was crying, the baby was crying. Dan was pacing in the hallway trying to figure out who he needed to calm down first. For a split second I felt like all was lost. Like my relationship with Mila was squashed and now she looked at me like a traitor. I felt so awful. I’m learning how to split myself into two, impossible I know. Somehow simple routine things feel like giant mountain hikes that Dan and I have to trail blaze all before bedtime. That nighttime tantrum by the way was over a lost band aid.
With each day we are all learning something new. Our routines are changing and slowly but surely we’ll find our way together. To be honest, Mila has been so kind and sweet with her sister. Offering tons of kisses, reading her books. Her favorite thing is to chat with her about rides at Disneyland. Dan and I are just trying to keep up with Mila. We are focused on spending quality time with just her and including her as much as we can with the baby. However, Mila is pretty uninterested in diaper changes, feedings etc. She says breastfeeding is “mom! Disgusting!” Which makes me laugh and I’m happy she isn’t the baby type. Mila is her own girl in her own world. She’ll stop to love on her sister then go back to her business. In the last week we’ve lived a thousand little moments that I hope to remember as much as possible. Even the hard ones!
One thing that has been keeping me grounded is my gratitude. It isn’t lost on me that this time last year I was pregnant and dreaming of these very moments I’m having right now! When I stop to think about what I have right this second is was I’ve wanted for a long while, my breath catches in my throat and grateful tears rim around my eyes. Life works in brutal beautiful ways. Experiencing my miscarriage last year was brutal, but it led me down a path of learning how to accept the things I can’t control. Now I walk around the house and remember that dark night when my miscarriage started. We were in our new home, and Christmas was in two days. I felt so alone, so angry, so sad. Holding Maya now while thinking about last year makes me squeeze her so tight and I take deep breaths while I nuzzle her neck. Desperately trying to soak in every moment with her and also offering a giant Thank You for this incredible gift. I can’t stop saying Thank You.
So it’s nearly been a week and like I said before, above anything else we are exhausted. Our sleepy eyes carry with them extreme love and gratitude for baby Maya and our new family life together. A lot of the time I can’t even explain how I feel. Beyond happy, proud, grateful, a little scared about the bumps it will take to establish a routine again. My body aches from re-learning how to breast feed and my diminishing baby bump has left behind a loose and empty middle that makes it a bit hard to move. Everything is new and yet oddly the same. Maya has been our sought after puzzle piece and this next chapter will be nothing but exciting!
Welcome to our family baby Maya!
I’ll share more soon once we have a bit more time to adjust. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent their love and well wishes. We are so grateful for you and our Baby Boy Bakery community!