Meredith is 1 week old!!!

This has been a very exciting week. Meredith has grown so much already!

Just to let you know what has gone on this first week of her life... Everything went great while in the hospital. Except we had some trouble nursing at first. She seemed to be feeding about every hour. Poor Meredith was so hungry! I just wasn't producing enough for her so we had to supplement with a little bit of formula. That seemed to help. They tested her Jaundice level before the left the hospital and she just had a touch of it. On Wednesday, we were released from the hospital. The first night at home was little stressful for me. I stayed up all night just watching Meredith. I shouldn't have done that to myself, but I just wanted to make sure she was okay. And of course, she made it through the night! The next day and night, I was much better. I tried to get more sleep. Friday morning, we returned to the hospital for Meredith's checkup. She had lost weight and her Jaundice level had gotten worse. She weighed 7.6 lbs when we left the hospital on Wednesday and Friday morning she weighed 7.3 lbs. Her Jaundice level was at 16. They told me that she need to get more volume in to get more volume out and that would clear up the Jaundice. So that meant that I wasn't feeding her enough again. Since I wasn't sure how much she was getting while I was nursing, I had to start pumping and supplementing more formula. We need to get her weight up and needed to start having more dirty diapers. They sent us home and wanted to see us back in two days. In the meantime, we went home and I started pumping and giving her more formula. That is when the fun began! We started getting a dirty diaper after every feeding. Skip and I never thought we would be so excited about that! :) On Friday afternoon, Meredith's aunt Dedda (my sister, Deborah) come to spend the weekend with us. Dedda likes to say that it was Meredith's first spend-the-night party...hahaha! She really helped Skip and me get some rest! Meredith slept in her cradle in Dedda's room so that we could get some sleep. Dedda would wake me up when it was time to feed Meredith. Needless to say, Dedda didn't get much sleep at all. Not that Meredith kept her awake very much, Deborah was just watching her like I did the first night. On Sunday, we went back for Meredith's second checkup. She had gained 5 oz. and her Jaundice level was down to 14. Yea!!!! But then, I let the nurse know that I had check my blood pressure the night before and it was high. She took my blood pressure and it was 148/102, which was not good. She made me lay down for 20 minutes and then she came back to take my blood pressure again. This time it was 138/94. She paged the on-call doctor, which just so happened to be Dr. Gebhart. He had the nurse call in some blood pressure meds for me. He asked that I really take it easy and he wants to see me in his office in a week. He said that this is very common after labor and it may only last a couple of weeks. Thanks to Skip, my sisters, my mother and my niece for helping me take it easy! My sister, Ginger has been cooking and cleaning for us. My niece, Jessica has been coming over to help with diaper changes and just giving her new cousin as much love a possible. Last night, Jessica spent the night to help me with middle of the night feedings so that Skip could sleep and help me during the day. My mother has been running all of our errands. And of course, my sister, Deborah helped me get rest over the weekend. We are so very lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives. Meredith is going to be spoiled by all of her family!!!! They all love her so much already.

It just doesn't seem like it has been a week since our precious angel was born. She really is wonderful!!! It is just amazing to me that we created this little creature. I just look at her and still can't believe it.

First few minutes of life

Getting love from my daddy

Hanging out with Ginia

Just relaxing

Getting to know my cousin, Jessica

1 week old

My fingers!!!