Life with Stella

Since we had Stella, our life has been very different than it was before. But now that she is here its hard to imagine that I went 25 years without her. She just fell right into place in our family and we are so happy she is finally here. I want to help you get to know Stella a little bit, catch you up on how we have been adjusting, and share tons and tons of pictures of our everyday life.

Stella in a nutshell:

• Stella now weights a little over 11 lbs. and is 22 inches. She quickly outgrew her new born clothes!
• She loves to be awake during the day to socialize and look at the world

• She sleeps well at night in her crib. Usually about a 6 hour stretch, but a few nights ago she did an 8 hour stretch! That hasn’t happened again, but I have high hopes that it will become a habit soon.
• She loves to cuddle! This is her favorite position with her hand down my shirt (just like her cousin Kalina):

• She normally HATES bath time, but we recently discovered she loves it if we get in with her and hold her.
• She loves it when we sing to her. Last night she was fussing a little and the only thing that seemed to calm her was to sing to her. I really wanted to read my book, though, so I held her and sang the words of my book to her and she loved it!
• She has little tufts of brown hair on her ears. She reminds me of a baby monkey.
• Her hair is light brown, but depending on the light has highlights of blonde and sometimes auburn.
• She has blonde eyebrows and eyelashes (does this mean she will turn blonde?)
• She has beautiful big, blue eyes.

• She likes to hold her binky in with her hand. Sometimes she pulls it out and waves it around. Although she tries really hard, she is not quite coordinated enough to put the binky back in her mouth after it comes out. We have a funny movie of her trying to push it back in with her arm. I’ll post it in a future post.

• She falls fast asleep in her car seat or stroller.
• She makes the cutest cooing sounds in her sleep. And she snores! The cutest little baby snores ever!
• She gets the hic-ups all the time and she hates it. Her whole body shakes and I have to hold her and love her until they pass.
• She loves laying on a big puffy pillow during the day.

• She is a very good natured little girl and is happy and bright eyed most of the time.
• She has started to smile, but I haven’t been able to get a great picture, yet.

We have adjusted really well to having this little sweetheart in our home, but there have been a couple challenges. Her umbilical cord fell off at two weeks. At about 2 1/2 weeks her belly button started to get red and swollen. It worried us, but we decided to wait a day and see if it improved. It didn’t. It got a lot worse over night and started oozing. It was a Sunday and we took her to urgent care. This is how it looked right before we took her to urgent care.

They said that it was infected and that we needed to get her to the hospital right away. After a quick trip home to pack some clothes, we took her Nationwide Children’s Hospital where she was admitted. They started her on IV antibiotics. We were there for 48 hours and Stella was an little angel. She was so pleasant and sweet and had no idea there was anything wrong or that she was at the hospital. She didn’t have a fever and she wasn’t fussy and she was eating normally. They were able to nip the infection in the bud before it got dangerous. After a round of oral antibiotics, Stella now has the cutest little baby belly button and it is completely back to normal.

It was scary to take my new born to the hospital. It was made much more difficult because around the same time I regressed in my recovery. I was feeling great about 2 weeks post partum, but then I started having a new pain that got progressively worse. It was the worst right when Stella was admitted and I couldn’t hardly move. I spent the whole time at the hospital laying flat on my back on a hard couch because I couldn’t sit or stand. As soon as Stella got out of the hospital, I went to the doctor and was told I have either a little tear or a little blood clot in between the muscles in my bottom. He told me that it would heal soon and to spend a lot of time laying down on ice packs. I took it really easy the next few weeks and I am finally happy to say that I am pretty much back to my old self. Not up for long walks or jogging, but I can sit comfortably and walk around the house without pain. Things are looking up!

However, Stella gave us one more little scare at 4 1/2 weeks. She started acting very fussy. She started having bowel movements with every feeding and in between, too. There was blood in her stool. It terrified us, so we took her to her pediatrician again. We had no idea what to expect and were terrified of another hospital visit or invasive testing. It was a relief to hear that its usually not as serious to see blood in a baby’s stool and it is very rarely something horrible like ulcerative colitis. We brought in one of her messy diapers and as soon as her doctor saw the nature of the blood, he was certain that it was caused by an allergy to the protein in milk called casein. We switched her to a pre-digested formula and saw almost immediate improvement. She stopped fussing, the blood went away, and she went back to one bowel movement a day.

We are doing great now and things are finally settling in to a routine. I also need to say how much I appreciate my sweet husband. He has taken Stella to every appointment when I couldn’t move off my back. He did everything to care for her in the hospital while I just laid there. He has cooked dinner every night, bathed Stella every time, changed diapers, taken night shifts, all while trying to keep up with classes. He is almost done with his last block of the basic sciences. In 2 1/2 weeks he will  focusing on prepping for his Step 1 boards exam which he will take in June. He really helped me to recover fully. He is a great dad.

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for: More pictures!!!!

 

She adores her dad:

And her mom:

Well, that’s all for now. Hope her bright eyes brightened your day!