So, What's It Like?

I know that's the question that would run through my head when I would read about my friends and their rainbow babies / take home babies. For me? It's totally amazing, incredible, wonderful, blissful...

Seriously. I love it. I love her!

Honestly, I had a lot of anxiety that I might have bonding issues, or emotional issues, or that the grief would all come rushing back. It hasn't been like that at all, thankfully. I mean if it was like that, I would work through it but I feel very blessed to not have to, and so thankful that I can just enjoy Stella and the miracle that she is. OK... I did have to choke back tears as we were walking in the house for the first time. The sun was shining, we were buzzed by two hummingbirds and Jim said "Say hi to your brothers, Stella!" And also as we climbed the stairs to bed that first night. More so for the fact that without all the loss I wouldn't have been snuggling our day old daughter at that point but there was also a small pang of grief in my gut. With a sigh, it lifted.

Transitioning her into our family has been pretty easy. The "big kids" were a bit off for the first couple days but I chalk that up to being tired as much as anything else. Now, 12 days later, they're helpful and back to their "normal" selves. We'll keep normal in quotes :) Stella's a mellow, easy going kid so far. She generally lets us sleep in 4 hour stretches at night and naps for a couple hours at a time during the day. Nursing is going really well which is a relief since I was so taken aback when, after a great experience with Karleigh, Rylan was so difficult.

I realized that I don't think I mentioned that her hear murmur was undetectable by the pediatrician on her second day. So we were very, very thankful for that. Our newest concern with her is that when she spits up, it often comes out her nose and/or she chokes it back down. She sounds stuffy quite often but that's probably from the spit-up. She sneezes a ton, again probably the spit up. She's generally a really happy, content baby so I'm hoping it's really just newborn-getting-used-to-the-outside-world stuff and not something more like reflux or a milk protein allergy but those are both on my radar right now and I've been praying about it.

But really, she's simply wonderful and everything about our new family feels really, really perfect.