Updates

I don't have anything fantastic or wonderful to say. But I wanted to let everyone know how we're doing.

Things are going great in our home...and not the kind of great that you say when everything is falling apart but you still tell people that things are going well. Honestly, things are really good. My hormones have been in check enough for me to not freak out too much, I guess. Or maybe it's just that this is our fourth child (and fourth adjustment to a new baby), my expectations were low. In any case, life has been calm and wonderful since bringing Evie home. I haven't been exhausted, the kids have been acting normally for the most part (there's been some major power struggles between Stephen and his daddy, but I'm not sure that's directly related to having a new baby in the house) and the new has not worn off Evie. The boys are still in love and still fight over her. The fight used to be about who got to hold her first, but now the fight is over who gets to hold her last because in order to curb the fights over who was first, I told them that whoever held her last got to hold her the longest. They even fight over who gets to take her diapers to the Diaper Champ. Sweet Hubby and I fight over her, too. Whenever the kids are in bed or visiting grandparents, we sort of race each other to see who gets Evie first when she wakes up. He normally wins. 'Cause I let him. It's an awesome feeling to see him with his daughter...he has been SO hands-on with her. Way more than I expected because he was sort of nervous about actually having a little girl. But he's changed as many diapers as I have and never once passes up an opportunity to change her or hold her or spend anytime he can get with her.

As far as Evie goes, she's just so precious. She's amazing. She's a very calm baby and rarely cries...when she does cry, 90% of the time she settles down before I can get to her to soothe her. I think she has a touch of reflux, which is no surprise since Zachary and Marc-Adam had it as well. But it really only seems to bother her when she's trying to go to sleep and it only keeps her from actually being able to sleep at night. The rest of the time, she just whines and winces for a few minutes and then goes to sleep on her own. For the last feed, I've started giving her Mylanta and that has helped her nighttime tremendously. She generally goes about 6 hours between her last feed of the evening and the first time she eats at night. Sometimes she'll wake up before then, but when I try to feed her, she goes right back to sleep. And then I doze off and we wake up a few hours later all snuggled up and she'll finally take a good feed. So considering there's a newborn in the house, I've been getting amazing sleep.

More brags on my hubby...Sweet Hubby is still home with us and will be for four more weeks. The only reason I'm able to hold it together is because of him. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I'd be a weepy mess for the majority of the time. He's been amazing in taking care of me and the kids and the operations of our home. I haven't made a meal in almost 2 weeks...haven't done laundry, haven't cleaned anything, haven't wiped any butts, haven't given the kids showers, haven't done dishes. And yet, we've eaten well (and not just the dinners that have been made for us, but breakfast and lunches, too!), we still have clean clothes, the kids are clean (with clean butts), the house is semi-straight and we still have dishes to eat off of. And the kids are well engaged, not climbing the walls and are having fun. It's just been wonderful and such a burden off my shoulders. In addition to running everything for me, he has also just been an awesome emotional support for me. When I told him yesterday that I was going to take a few more days to take it easy, he told me to take as long as I needed because he was still going to be home for another month. He is such an amazing answer to my prayers. There will be many tears the day he goes back to work.

As for me and my recovery...well, it's abundantly clear that this is my fourth c-section and that my body is not the same as it was when I had Stephen. It took a little while for my incision to become comfortable and I've actually finished off the bottle of vicodin I got when I left the hospital. I've never done that before. Most of my current pain is coming from a muscle in my hip...it is extremely painful and I've woken Hubby up in the middle of the night a couple of times by crying out in pain. It's fine if I stay perfectly still, but I have to be very careful in moving around because if I move the wrong way, it feels like that muscle has been lit on fire. It's getting a little better slowly, but I'm looking forward to my 2 week check on Thursday to talk to my doctor about it. Other than that, things are healing up quite nicely. Nursing is going really well. My milk came in before I left the hospital and Evie has been fairly good at getting the hang of things.

So, for now, there is much peace in the kingdom.