A Lot to be Thankful For

I know that it has been a while since the last post, but as I am sure you all can imagine, we have been very busy over the past couple of weeks! On our last visit to the Pediatrician, Cecelia weighed 7 lbs 12 oz against her birth weight of 8lbs 6 oz. We went to the Pediatrician last Thursday, November 18, and Cecelia was up to 8 lbs and 21.5 inches (she was 19.5 inches at birth). The Pediatrician was encouraged by her growth and weight gain, but they like newborns to generally be back at birth weight after two weeks, so he wanted so see us again in a week. This also meant that we had to keep waking her up to feed at least every 3 hours and Michelle also had to pump after feeding during the day.

We went back to the Pediatrician yesterday and Cecelia was up to 8lbs 4 oz and everything looked good, but still not at birth weight after 3 weeks, to they told us to continue the 3 hour feedings and come back again in a week. Michelle has been handling all of this pretty well since, but as you can imagine she is very tired and sore from the constant feedings. We are trying as often as we can to save the pumped milk and have me do feedings so Michelle can sleep through, but the problem with that is she still needs the stimulation to keep up milk production. Michelle continues to feel better every day and has started taking walks outside with the baby since the weather was nice this past week.

I have been very busy at work and probably working longer than I should be considering I have a newborn at home and a wife who is working very hard to keep her fed and not getting enough sleep. But being busy means at work is because sales are pretty good right now, so it is kind of a good problem to have. In general our sales increase in the winter due to chapped lips and dry skin that the winter time brings along with it. Luckily, my Mom came down last week to help out and give Michelle's Mom a break so she could catch up on sleep. Michelle's Mom came back up this week when my Mom left, so we have had a lot of help for Cecelia, and for that we are very thankful!

We want to wish all of our friends and family a Happy Thanksgiving today. We are all very thankful for your thoughts, support, food, gifts and help you have given us since the birth of our daughter. We are very lucky to work for great companies and have such great friends and family and also very thankful for them all today. Here are a few pictures from the past week. Happy Thanksgiving!

After her first bath with mommy.

Her first bottle of breast milk.