I can't believe my baby girl is already two and a half weeks old. So much has happened in the past two and a half weeks it almost feels like a lifetime, but then I look at my girl and I feel like time is slipping through my fingers.
As you all know Isla is our third baby, our second daughter. She's also going to be our last baby. I'm retiring from having children.
I'm not usually one of those overly emotional, maternal type people. I'm more of a realistic, semi-tough-love kind of mums.
When my kids fall over (and it looks funny) I laugh. When my kids are being little shits I'm not afraid to discipline them. When people are busy stressing over 'oh I don't know what to do my poor poor baby is getting a tooth it's so sad so I cuddle them all day and let them sleep in my bed' I'm sitting next to them thinking "you're an idiot, kiss them and give them panadol, if needed, and put them in their own bloody bed"
That's just the kind of person I am. Always have been.
But having Isla and knowing she's going to be my last baby has brought about these whole new set of feelings. I feel a lot more protective. I feel a lot more attached to her, I want her to always be with me. I want to always be holding her. To be near her. I find it hard to lay her down in bed some days because I just want to be with her. Don't get me wrong I LOVE spending time with my big kids but I have this overwhelming sense of protectiveness and bond with Isla. I feel like I've bonded really well with all my kids, I've just never felt so attached.
I'm not into attachment parenting. I'm not one to be into baby wearing, or co sleeping. I'm not one to over do the comfort thing-comfort where comfort is needed-is how I've always done it. I've never rocked my kids to sleep, never let them sleep in a pram or bouncer because 'that's where they are comfortable.' I don't even have the kids sleep in our bedroom when they first come home. They have gone straight into the cot. I don't even use a baby monitor-I find them entirely pointless. I don't sterilise baby bottles, I don't sterilise dummy's. I'm a practical, realistic person that doesn't make a fuss about anything. But sometimes with Isla I feel like I would do anything to keep her happy or satisfied.
I want time to stop still. I forgot how much I LOVE newborns. They are so small and fragile and just amazing. But I feel like my time with her as a baby is so limited. I'm scared I'm going to miss a moment. I'm scared I'm going to forget all the little things.
I'm trying to hold on to all the memories and all the little things. It's so easy to forget what having a newborn is like. I haven't had a newborn in 4 yrs and it's amazing the stuff you forget.
Like the way they smell. That newborn smell is amazing. Especially when they are fresh out of the oven. They come out covered in goo and who knows what else but they smell so amazing.
The first time I saw my girl I was in love.
The first time our 4 and 5 yr old met their baby sister was an amazing moment. I hope to always remember Bradley walking in and saying "she has fat cheeks" and the smile on Kaitlyn's face when she held her baby sister for the first time.
Having our first family photo was another special moment. Like we got to finally see our whole, complete family together. As though the missing piece of the puzzle was finally put into place.
And then, you get to take home this amazing little person.
I want to remember the feeling I get when Isla is feeding. The way she looks up at me with her big blues eyes. The little sucking and sighing noises she makes. The way she holds on to the middle of my bra while she feeds. That feeling of closeness when you know you are giving your baby the best, most nutritious food in the world. The way she emerges from feeding covered in milk, eyes rolling around in her head, sighing like it's been an amazing but tiring experience. The giant burps that she has no idea about. The milk drunk phase is awesome. I love milk drunk babies. The way she has her mouth wide open and pants like she's out of breath after a big exhausting feed. I love the milky breath newborns have.
Isla totally milk drunk
Sometimes I feel like I missed these moments with my other two kids. Maybe I was too young and clueless to take much notice. Maybe I was too busy with a toddler and newborn when Bradley was born. Maybe these feelings come with age and maturity (not that I'm very mature yet!).
That first night Isla was home with us she slept from 8:30pm-5am. I mean that's pretty amazing.
And since then she's been an excellent sleeper.
I'm a routine person though so since day 1 Isla has been in a routine. At the moment she's on 3 hourly feeds and has 3 sleeps a day with a catnap at 5:30. She goes to bed at 7pm, has a 10pm dream feed and then she wakes about 3-3:30am for her next feed. Then 7am we are all up and ready to start our day. In the next few weeks she will learn to drop that 3:30am feed and we will slowly begin to bring that 10pm feed forward in half an hour increments until she has her last feed at 6:30pm.
So far she's doing really well and thriving on her routine. So are the rest of us. She's fitting in nicely with our family. She's joined a close family, a loving family and I couldn't be happier with how everyone has settled in. Although Kaitlyn and Bradley do tend to smother her with love a bit too much sometimes!!
We had some professional photos taken-as we have with all three kids.
These photos are by Emma Broadway from A Story About Love Photography
I don't want to miss a single moment, a single memory. I don't want to forget anything.
My girl posing for photos for me
Making funny faces when she's had enough of her feed. Isla closes her mouth real tight when she's full!
As with my other two kids I've kept a baby diary for Isla as well. It's a little notebook I write stories in for the kids. I write funny things they say or do. Stories about how they came to be (not including any gross bits). Developmental milestones reached. All sorts of things about their life.
But for Isla I started the diary while I was pregnant. I wrote my appointments, how I was feeling, the symptoms I was getting, how we were preparing for her arrival etc... I also took a lot more pregnancy photos.
Sometimes when I'm sitting down watching Isla I am so overcome with love and emotion I get tears in my eyes. Sometimes I feel sad that this is going to be my last baby. It just feels so final.
I was the one that wanted to stop at 2 kids. But now that I have Isla and remember how amazing the newborn stage is, and how amazing it is to have a big family I feel like it's so final to say she's my last baby. I sometimes look at her and think 'I could do this 100more times' although I don't think my poor body would love me for it. My back aches, I have arthritis in my hips and I just don't know if I could do another 9 months of hell!
It's only two and a half weeks since I gave birth but I feel like I've already forgotten all about the pain and discomfort from the pregnancy and birth. I feel like I recovered from this labour 100times quicker and better than the last two times.
My stomach muscles are coming together nicely. I had minor stitches that healed super quickly. My uterus seems to have gone down quickly (after having Kaitlyn my uterus contracting was at times so bad I would curl up in a ball and cry) this time the contractions have been light and only lasted a week. My bleeding has also been a lot better, it's gone down heaps quicker and I've been feeling a lot more comfortable in general. In fact this labour and recovery has been so much better I honestly feel like I could do it all over again....but then I remember the dreaded 9 month pregnancy, and the fact that I already have a full on family and life, and that kids are super expensive to raise and I want to be able to live a simple but comfortable life.
The only thing post birth that has sucked worse than the last two times is the constipation. I've had it bad all three times but the first two times once I started I was fine, this time it took a lot more effort to get back to normal-I'm still not quite there yet even now!
Time is flying by. Two and a half weeks feels like only a day. I'm ready to slow things down, to pay more attention to all the little things my kids do. Because one day I'm going to miss having them talk silly. I'm going to miss the way Bradley sits on his knees at the kitchen table to eat dinner. I'm going to miss the way Kaitlyn gets her words muddled up. I'm going to miss breast feeding Isla. I will miss being able to choose clothes for them, reading stories to them, brushing Kaitlyn's hair. I will miss the way they look at me as though I'm so intelligent and some kind of super hero for (almost) always being able to answer their questions. I will miss bath time and bedtime stories, I will miss them needing cuddles for every hurt body part. I will miss spending time to make bottles or baby food, I will miss packing lunch boxes and listening to daily reading. I'm sure I will even miss helping them with their homework, singing nursery rhymes.
I will miss having baby's, I will miss having young kids. I'm sure at some stage I will even miss the teenage years-once we get there.
We are so blessed to have three little miracles. Our family is amazing and every day is an absolute blessing.
I don't want to miss a single thing.
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