Getting easier

Things are finally getting easier. My 'blues' are staying at bay most of the time. They creep up every now and then....mostly when I am sleep deprived and my house is a mess......it seems to always coincide. Imagine that.

It has been wonderful to have family support with phone calls, prayers and even coming over to help out. My house is now MOSTLY clean and Miriam is sleeping more and more at night. Well, longer stretches at least. It is wonderful to wake up every 4-5 hours as opposed to once every hour. And it seems that the medicine is finally working. Our third medicine did the trick. She is still puking like a champ, but at least she feels better. I have to say, however, she is the NOISIEST baby ever in existence. I'm not talking about crying. She grunts. ALL THE TIME. ALL NIGHT LONG. There is NO quiet time. She is always grunting. I will have to video tape it and post it for all to see because it is a riot.

Miriam and her froggy towel.

Uncle Stephen is in love with his niece. He loves to hold her and stare at her.

Aunt Deborah and Miriam. She loves the cuddle time with her niece, too.

Gramma Milburn and Miriam

Sleepy!

Holding her binky in all by herself like a big girl.

Sleeeeeeeping

Nana and Papa

In case you are wondering, she is wearing a bib because of all the puke she emits from her body.

First trip to the mall. I informed Daniel that it would be the first of many for Miriam. ; )

Nana and Miriam

Miriam put her hand in Daddy's mouth while she was sleeping. SO FUNNY!!!

This Mom thing

It's amazing how much my life has changed in the past month. Some of it feels natural, some of it not so natural. My hormones, for example do not feel natural. There have definitely been more good days than bad as of late, but having a baby certainly felt as though I was ice skating on the brink of sadness sometimes. It's natural, I am told, so I didn't worry. As usual, my mom has been a huge encouragement and everyday I am feeling more and more excited to be a mommy, too. Not that I wasn't before, but, well.....those of you with kids of your own may understand.

A lot of this was due to the trouble we encountered getting Miriam to nurse. It took a ridiculously long three weeks to get her to completely nurse. WHEW! What work. Her little mouth had such difficulty latching on, so our feeding time became the following: try to nurse her, cry in frustration, attempt to calm her down because she was crying too, heat up a bottle of breast milk, feed her, get her to sleep, pump for about 25 minutes, then sleep for about 30 because that was all the time I had left before it started all over again. 24/7. That's how it went for 3 weeks. Daniel was a HUGE encouragement as well. I am so thankful for such an amazing husband who valued my determination to get our child to breastfeed.

We also had a small scare involving one of Miriam's blood tests. The pediatrician called us to let us know that one of her 'levels' came back as abnormal. It seemed she might not have a certain vitamin in her body. Only 1 in 40,000 have this deficiency and although we could meet with people at the Children's Hospital in Denver to receive a supplement that she would be required to take for the rest of her life, I was still nervous. If left untreated, it had some pretty serious consequences. Our doctor told us that it may be a fluke on the first blood test because they set the bar so low to catch any and all deficiencies in newborns. Until those results came in, he instructed us to keep nursing her because she was getting this vitamin directly from my breast milk! What an amazing blessing! I knew there were several reasons I was so diligent about getting my child to nurse. ha.

So, we waited about a week for the results and prayed, prayed, prayed! Lo and behold, everything came back just fine!!!! Thank God!

Miriam is now fully nursing....AMAZING. She is just the cutest thing ever. I love her so much and am looking forward to showing her off. We have really been laying low for awhile with both my emotions and the nursing complications. But, now we are getting ready to go out. Life has thrown us another challenge, however, in that Miriam has developed a pretty wicked case of acid reflux. We have her on medicine and have had two appointments regarding it. Hopefully, we will find something that works well soon because I hate seeing her in pain. She is very fussy.

This is what Sarah calls her 'blue steel' look. Have you seen Zoolander? Then you would know what I am talking about.

Awww.....sweet sleep. She has a huge gash on her cheek where she scratched it. Bad Mommy didn't clip her nails in time.

Daddy LOVES LOVES LOVES his little girl. So much that he holds her allllll niiiiiight long when he gets home. Fine with me. With her acid reflux, she wants to be held by me throughout the entire day. I mostly use my Moby wrap to carry her around so I can still get things done.

More cuddle time with Daddy.

She looks like a monkey in this picture. Awww...Mommy's little monkey.

Up close and personal

Yep. Starting her early. Daddy's little Bronco.

I love this one. She just looks so comfortable. Either that or totally bored with life.

So sweet.

And this is her "My tummy huuuuuuuuurts" face.

Cuddle time with Mommy

First bath

Rescue me!

This is the sling Miss Miriam makes me carry her around in. It's usually the only thing that will calm her down.

This is how Daniel sleeps, too.

This is my favorite Mommy & Miriam picture to date!

I am a lot more excited to be taking this picture than she is.

Daddy and the sling

This was the first time she sucked her thumb! Oh goodness it was so cute. Daniel rushed downstairs to grab the camera so we could capture it.