Life with Emily

Life is amazing! I can’t believe how much our lives have changed! This sweet little baby is all I think about these days! She is changing so fast! She is gaining weight, is much more attentive, and loves to hit the toys hanging from her bouncy chair. She absolutely loves to be held and cuddled. I think she would be content if we held her all day long!!! She is so sweet!!!!! She stares right at us whenever we are talking to her. It is just so cute!!! Emily absolutely LOVES her pacifier!!!! Sometimes she holds both hands right in front of the pacifier as if trying to keep it from falling out of her mouth!! She even tries her best to get it back in her mouth when she drops it, but if she isn’t successful really fast, she screams for help! Silly girl! She makes so many funny noises that make us laugh! She is incredible! I still can’t believe she’s ours!!!!!!! She is perfect!

That being said, I will admit that life is rough sometimes! I am recovering (I hope) from an infection from my c-section. I would have never dreamed that I would still hurt this much after more than 2 weeks! I still have a hard time getting in and out of bed, sitting certain ways, and just changing positions in general. Emily doesn’t like to sleep at night either! She was originally not going down for bed till 4am! We have managed to change that time to around midnight, which helps! Sleep makes everything seem so much better!!! (Now if we could just move her bedtime a couple more hours earlier!!!)

At birth, Emily weighed 3400 grams. At five days, she weighed 3165 grams. She lost less than 10% of her body weight, which is within the normal range. At 10 days, she weighed 3340 grams. Good weight gain, but not quite up to birth weight yet at that point. A midwife weighed her again yesterday (15 days) and she weighed 3480 grams! Yay! She passed her birth weight and was declared healthy, so she was released from midwife care!

Last Friday (16th) was Emily’s first adventure outside of Wexham Park Hospital grounds. We took a taxi to our GP’s office (General Practitioner, or Family Doctor). We had to go there to fill out paperwork to register her with the GP. It didn’t take very long and she slept the whole time!

Sunday was her second adventure – and this one was more of an adventure! We took a taxi to Slough and went to Snappy Snaps Photography to have her passport photo taken! It turned out so cute!!! Then we went grocery shopping at Sainsbury’s. That was an adventure, but we managed! Phillip was wearing Emily in the front carrier…it is sort of like a backpack, but holds her in the front. She loves it and always falls fast asleep in it! She slept almost the whole time we were gone!!!

Tuesday was Emily’s biggest adventure by far! We took a taxi to Slough. Then she had her first train ride, to London Paddington station! Then she had her first Subway rides as we headed toward the US Embassy for her 8am appointment. (By the way, we only got 4 hours of sleep that night…which made for a really long day!!!) At the US Embassy, we had to apply to register her birth, get a social security number, and get a passport. The appointment took forever!!!! There was a lot of waiting because they would call our number to the window to do one section, then tell us to wait till we were called to the next window…over and over and over! We finally got that finished and the lady said “Congratulations, your daughter is now a US citizen!” Hooray!!! That was great to hear! Emily’s passport is scheduled to arrive in the mail on Monday…fingers crossed that it gets here with no problems! Once we have her passport, we can finally add her on to our plane tickets back home!!!!!!!!!! (Phillip wore Emily in the carrier again and once again she slept most of the trip!! I was pretty proud of myself though because I did manage to feed and change her while we were out – that was the first time that we were out long enough to need to!)

Otherwise, life has been pretty much the same each day – playing with/taking care of Emily, trying to find time to sleep, cook, and do dishes, and Phillip trying to study. He has a test coming up on Thursday and we will both be so glad when it is over!!!!

I’m not sure if I had mentioned it, but Phillip had 2 weeks off from the hospital once Emily was born! That was sooooo nice and I seriously don’t know what I would have done without him, especially those first few days when I could barely move! We have enjoyed our time as a family of 3 while getting to know little Emily! He has been studying a lot though of course! I think it is so cute when he studies while holding Emily…she’s helping him study! HA! :-)