So...having a baby is hard work! :) We have definitely been in for a reality check the past few days. I of course knew that babies were hard and I tried to prepare myself for it (HA!) but I was definitely not expecting how hard it would be. I have a new found respect for all moms and especially moms of multiples! We've had several rough nights. The first 2 days home from the hospital were by far the 2 roughest days of my whole life (tuesday and wednesday). Monday night, Ella was up most of the night and fed 5 times in 5 hours. By morning, I didn't know how I would make it. We headed to the hospital to get Ella's jaundice test done. While she was getting her test done, just all the fatigue really hit, combined with pain from my stitches and breastfeeding problems and I just hit rock bottom. There was actually a breastfeeding support group going on while we were there so Ella and I headed over to that and sat in for about an hour. I did get some advice but the class was so large that one on one attention was hard to get. After the class, I called my dr. for some pain I had been having in my chest. My dr's office kinda freaked out and said I needed to get to the ER right away and get a cat scan-pretty much the very last thing I felt like doing. But we headed down there anyways. The scan turned up with nothing wrong so we had a few other tests done and headed home. The next day was filled with stress because Ella wouldn't breastfeed and we finally had to break down and give her a bottle of formula. I had a call from the lactation consultant (I had left a message to try and get some advice), and she basically made me feel like a horrible mother for giving a bottle, I felt so bad! We ended up giving one more bottle that day and finally were able to get her to breastfeed again. BUT, after all that, today seemed to be a turning point and we had a really good day. Ella had her first pediatrician appointment and....we got rid of the bili blanket!! YEAH!! We hated that thing, it was so hard to feed or hold her with that on. Her other stats were
Weight 7lbs 4oz (down 5 oz from birth weight but up 3 oz from discharge weight), 33 percentile
Length 20 1/2 inches (up 1/2 inch from birth length) 67th percentile

So, that made us feel good that she is growing, despite the feeding problems! We tried hard to keep her awake today so we are hoping for a good night tonight, we'll see how it goes :)
And now, the REAL reason you are reading this blog, the pictures! Here are some of my recent favorites:

Her bringing home outfit, a little big. Rusty thinks this is her rapper pose :) YO.

Right after her first bath at home. How sweet is she??



I'll try to keep posting pics of sweet little Ella! Once things settle down a little we're hoping to have my friend Amber come over to do a photo shoot for us, can't wait! We're just so blessed to have sweet Ella as our daughter.