Happy Thanksgiving

Yes, a slightly late Thanksgiving post... but in my defense, we are celebrating the holiday tomorrow.  We always celebrate the weekend following T-day since Thursday obviously isn't a holiday here.

 Right now I'm set up in the kitchen with a pile of pillows on my lap topped by a nuring baby reading off the recipies for pies, brining turkey, stuffing, etc.  So much to be thankful for this year!  I suppose the number one thing on my list is the little being placidly nursing as I type this; number two would be the fact that I can still celebrate Thanksgiving even with a newborn because my mom is cooking up a storm and I am only helping intermitently between baby feedings.

Emily will be a month old this Tuesday and I can hardly believe it!  She is changing by the day and getting so much stronger and fatter.  I am astounded by how she holds her head and seems already to be trying to get her knees up under her to crawl if I put her on her tummy. And it seems almost magical to me that I am her only food source...and she is visibly gaining weight and happy as a clam. :)

I am thankful that my parents can be here for so long and not only because they're an enormous help,

...sorry, my baby finally fell asleep long enough for me to get some cooking done with my mom.  I had to leave that mid-sentence!  I promise to finish some time soon, but in the meantime I want to post this so you all have something to read. ;)

To wrap up, I will say I am thankful that I can leave my mom reading in the kitchen keeping an eye on the apple pies in the oven while I can go straight to bed and hopefully sleep a bit before hungry Emily wakes me up!

Happy, happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

One Week Old

It is hard to believe that just one week ago my baby girl was only hours old.  I can already tell this is going to go by far too fast.

Welcome Emily Alejandra!

...one week ago today...

At the moment, my little angel is sleeping peacefully and has been for the past three hours...  My breasts say it's time for her to wake up, but I am rue to wake a sleeping baby.  We wore her out today with a visit to the pediatrician for her and a visit for me to the midwife to look at my stiches.  All is well, my girl's gained back 100 gr. although the pediatrician warns that that is the minimum.  She wants to see us next week again.  My milk only came in on Saturday, so I am sure that she will gain much more weight this week.  In anycase I know that breastfed babies are a little slower to gain than bottle-fed babes.  

...I am beginning to hear her stir so I think I'll jump at the chance to empty my engorged breasts.  There is no lack of food here, let me tell you.  Little Em just isn't taking full advantage of my full boobies!

more soon...

thanks Leah! One week today :)

Welcome to the World

Well, all of you have seen by precious daughter by now I am sure.  With the way communication and social networks go these days I feel like everyone saw her before even I did!  On the one hand that was a wonderful thing because we were being bombarded by congratulatory Whatsapp messages and phone calls... and I still haven't dared to log on to facebook (my dad posted a picture or two).  But at the same time it couldn't help feeling just a little invasive in such an intimate, beautiful moment.  

Anyway, I really have been wanting to share this with all of you and write it down for myself, but of course that's hard to do with a baby on your breast! At the moment, it seems that my little, milk-guzzling, wiggle worm is down for the count so I can finally get on here and share some of all this myself.  

***

...So I started writing that this morning over my dad's homemade pancakes (yummmmm) and since then we've had to bathe and nurse little Em.  I think I'll opt for a longer email some other time.  And leave you with a little picture documentation for now.  Now that my milk's come in it seems Emily A. is more and more satisfied after each feeding and therefore sleeps a bit longer each time.  

In any case, I cannot complain--she's the world's sweetest baby and really doesn't cry at all.  It's just that she's so small she gets tired at the breast and spends a very long time there, sucking, resting, sucking, sleeping, sucking, resting...etc.  So of course that means I can do very little other than read or chat with the seemingly endless stream of visitors who come by to see my little bundle.

Today we're going to venture out with her.  During pregnancy I couldn't eat jamón, and today there is a jamón expo. in a nearby town...I'm taking full advantage of my non-pregnant state and we're off on the town with my little one to ingulge in the best cured pig this side of the Atlantic! ;)

Hours old and I'm a happy, happy mommy.

Could she be any cuter?

Sunbathing with mamá to keep bilirubin at bay...

She got dressed up to leave the hospital.

Five days old and still wondering exactly what's happened to her. ;)