One week old

In just a few minutes, Ava will be exactly one week old. Seems like forever ago that we were driving to the hospital; I can't tell you what day it is (ok, so I know it's Sunday, but there will be times today when it feels like a Friday or Monday). So far we're doing pretty well, I think. We're actually managing to get 2-3 hours of sleep between night feeding and pumping, although there have been two nights when that 2-3 hours was spent trying to calm a fussy baby who wouldn't settle down.

Ava has experienced the "joys" of the bathroom - she shrieked when I bathed her and then she shrieked with Joe bathed her (at least she was settled for some cute pictures following)

She is now over her birth weight. She weighed 8lbs at birth, dropped to 7lbs 9oz before leaving the hospital, weighed in at 7lbs 14 oz at her first check-up and was back up to just over 8lbs at her second weigh in just two days later. All in all, quite an accomplishment for the both of us, considering she doesn't always feed from both sides and at the beginning I was suffering from very painful blisters. I have to pump whatever she doesn't eat and now have a healthy supply of frozen breastmilk in the freezer for such time as we can leave her with a babysitter. Any volunteers?

We caught an old episode of Oprah yesterday which featured a lady who claims to have unlocked the mystery of baby language. Seems all babies make the same sounds when they're feeling the same thing (if they're hungry they say "neh", when they're sleepy they say "owh" etc), so we've been listening to Ava for those cues... and they seem to be working. During the night last night when she was fussy, she was telling us she has gas and needed burping; unfortunately she takes forever to produce a burp so after a while, I had to resort to milk to settle her down. It's all quite an adventure though!

Off to get showered up while she is snoozing! Enjoy the pictures!