Due Date: 2018-05-01. Born on date: 2018-04-25.
The unsinkable HMS Hazel Mae has arrived. This post has been backdated to her arrival date and time because it took me too long to start this and for posterity. Kat’s labor took ~6 hours, starting around 7 am and delivering at just after 1 pm. Hazel was in distress during the birth with low ‘blood gas’ meaning she was stressing and not practicing deep breathing because being born is hard. After a bit of drama with the placenta and a bit of time in the NICU, we were all reunited, though, with a healthy baby girl in our arms.
The first few days are a blur of hospital room service and trying to figure out how to swaddle (mostly unsuccessfully). After 48 hours, the hospital let us leave with her for some reason, without any supervision at all. We arrived to be greeted by my entire family (grandma Shelley, grandSport, aunt Lily, and uncle Miles) who kept us busy for most of the weekend. After their departure, we settled into the surreal experience of being alone with our newborn baby girl, alternating mostly between maddening confusion, frantic soothing, playful swooning, and joyful enamor. Kibby is perhaps in love with her as much as we are.
Hazel never really took a pacifier in the early weeks, and breastfeeding wasn’t always smooth. Initially, her weight at check-in with the pediatrician was a bit lower than ideal. Once we started supplementing the breastfeeding with formula, though, she gained rapidly and ate with great fervor, just like daddy. By about week 3, we sort-of-kind-of-maybe-a-little settled into something one might call a routine. Just in time for a ‘leap’ and for all of it to be thrown out. Still, I think it’s safe to say that overwhelming bliss and love were the dominant emotions between periods of stress.