Lydia's First 2 Weeks

Lydia isn't quite two weeks old yet, and despite her short time on the outside, we absolutely adore our girl and have loved getting to know her. She has remained a very easy baby. She rarely cries, sleeps pretty darn well at night, and just loves to be held by anyone who will take her.

Her first couple days were of course spent in the hospital. Those days are always hardest for me because c-sections are painful. I couldn't get her in and out of her bassinet and often a trip to the bathroom left me in tears. This recovery was much more difficult than my others, and I'm not really sure why. At least with this being my fourth c-section I knew mostly what to expect and could be prepared.

Before we left the hospital one of the pediatricians found a heart murmur. He assured us is was probably a VSD and would more than likely close on its own in the first year or two of life. Two days later (Tuesday) our regular pediatrician found the murmur and agreed, but since a stethoscope can only pick up so much, he set up an appointment for us at the UVA Children's Hospital to see a pediatric cardiologist the next week.

The rest of the week went pretty smoothly. I was still in a lot of pain, but getting better every day. We tried to do a few fun things with the girls, but on Saturday things took a bad turn. I ended up in the hospital after suffering some complications and didn't get home until 1:30am on Sunday. Luckily Lydia was absolutely perfect during our extra hospital stay, and she received lots of compliments from the staff. (If you would like details, I have a separate post about it here)

On Monday (the 29th) we made the trip to Charlottesville for Lydia's appointment. I really wasn't worried about the outcome, but there is always that nagging in the back of a mother's head, "what if..." I was happy to see that she had grown a good bit since her last doctor's appointment. She was 6 pounds 5 ounces and 19 inches at UVA, which means she surpassed her birth weight and grew an inch and a half.

It turns out she has two tiny holes in her heart between valves. The doctor assured us that he did not see them ever being a problem or affecting her health in any way. They should close on their own in the next couple years. He also said that even if they don't close they are so small that she could still be an Olympic athlete in the future. The appointment did take a while and we had told the girls we would do something fun with them. So after the appointment we decided to take them to the movies and saw Kung Fu Panda 3. Everyone really enjoyed it, except Lydia, who slept through the whole thing.

Yesterday we took her to her 10-14 day appointment, and her pediatrician says she looks great! She weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and so far is a very healthy, happy baby. She's absolutely perfect.

Today is Jordan's first day back to work, and besides his car not starting and Emiliana climbing out of her crib and refusing to nap, it's gone pretty smoothly. Maybe I'll even manage to fold the laundry that's been on the chair for 3 days. Or not. I don't want to get ahead of myself.