Having Brielle in our family has seriously been such a joy. This first month of life as a family of 7 has been a memorable one. I've loved having the kids home as we've really enjoyed the final month of summer all together. We enjoyed watching the Olympics together cuddling with a sweet sweet newborn. I just sat and cuddled her every minute that I could. I just wanted to drink it all in and cherish it forever. Babies grow and change so fast, they are so precious, sweet, and straight from Heaven. It's such a miracle to have a baby. When I look into Brielle's eyes I feel her sweet spirit, I feel close to our Father in Heaven. Sometime when she's just looking off I wonder what she's seeing, what she's remembering. Seeing Brayden, Adelyn, Sophie and Kolby with their baby sister brings me so much joy....ok some stress too, especially when Kolby decides he wants to carry her to me or be my extra big helper in some other way. But for the most part they are all incredible with her. They all help me change her diaper, get her dressed. It's been such a different experience to have a baby with older kids that are very capable helper, who can help me with Brielle and help in taking care of themselves more. Oh it's wonderful!!!!!
Brielle's first month was a little challenging.. Even though the delivery went fairly smoothly I was still tired and trying to recover. Trying to take care of 5 kiddos is busy...not a lot of spare time...always doing something, loving someone, feeding someone, cleaning up after someone, teaching someone....Nights and days were mixed up which is totally normal, but there were a few things that we had to deal with that we've never dealt with before. Brielle had Jaundice bad enough that we had to keep taking her back to the hospital about every other day for the first 1 1/2 weeks. If her #'s went up one more number she would have been under the lights. Due to the fact that she was jaundice and that she was 3 weeks early she just wanted to sleep all the time. We had to take her clothes off, change her diaper, rub her down, bathe her, flick her feet, wipe her down with a wet washcloth..I know it sounds so mean, just to try to get her awake to eat. This process had to be done a few time during each feeding to try to keep her awake. It was a chore to say the least. She wasn't a very good nurser either which creates it's own set of complications too. My milk started drying up, she stopped having wet/poopy diapers, she started loosing weight. I don't know what I would have done without help from my cousin Sheri K who is a lactation consultant. She was great, she talked to me, texted me, came over to help... she answered tons of questions that I had and was amazing. You'd think that after I've nursed 4 other babies that I would have this all down and be a pro...I guess the Lord was reminding me that all babies are different and that I still have lots to learn. I had to nurse Brielle every 2 hours, then pump to try to get my milk supply back up and then give her a bottle after each feeding to make sure that she was getting enough and gaining weight again.
At Brielle's 2 week check up she weighed almost 1 pound less than her birth weight. That was even after we'd been supplementing after each feeding. It was stressful, I was so worried about her and getting worn out. Since I fed her about every 2 hours and each feeding took close to an hour, it felt like that was all I was doing....We'll she started latching on better, eating more and finally started gaining weight. It took her 4 weeks to get back to her birth weight. Now she's gaining and doing well.. The stress levels have gone down quite a bit.
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