Hannah's first month

I am very late in posting this, so unfortunately I have probably forgotten a lot of things, but I will try to post all that I remember.

After coming home from the hospital, Steve took the first week off of work to help me out.  And my mom and his mom were here quite a bit to help out.  That whole first month was pretty much a blur.  Not from lack of sleep, just from being so busy with Hannah.  I was going really stir crazy by the end!  I basically fed her, changed her, and put her to sleep, over and over again.  And cried because I was just so in love with her.  I didn't have any post-partum depression, but I was very emotional in a happy sappy way.

We went to her first doctor's appt on March 10th, when she was actually due.  She was 5 days old.  She measured in at 20.25 inches long, and was down to 7lbs, 4 oz.  But we weren't surprised, since it took 4-5 days for my milk to come in, so she had only been getting real milk for about a day.  Other than her weight, she was the picture of health and our doctor kept saying how great we were all doing.

Next visit to the doctor was at 12 days old, and she was up to 20.5 inches long, and 7 lbs, 9 oz.  I had to wake her up every 2-3 hours to feed her, since she had been born, in order to make sure she was eating enough.  I asked the doctor at this visit if I could stop that, and she said that I should keep going, since she wasn't back up to her birth weight yet.  I think I did that for another couple of nights, and then I stopped, because I just knew that she was going to be just fine, and I didn't think she needed to be woken up, since she didn't sleep much longer than 2-3 hours anyway.

At 2 weeks old, we gave her her first bottle of pumped breast milk.  She took it no problem.  We had been told that she may not want it, and that I may have to leave the room or even the house.  But she didn't care, and hasn't since, as long as she is getting fed.  I even gave her a bottle myself, early on, and she didn't seem to mind.  So that gave me some freedom to run errands and leave the house for awhile, which was great.

We didn't do too much else that month, since we couldn't take her in public places.  We went on lots of walks around the neighborhood and had lots of family and friends visit.

Finally, when she was one day shy of 4 weeks old, I met my friend Pam at the mall with her little girl who is a few months older than Hannah.  We had lunch, and Hannah slept, and then we walked around the mall a bit.  Of course Hannah woke up after lunch and I basically spent the rest of the time in the public nursing rooms that the mall has.  But at least we got out!

Here are some pictures from Hannah's first month...