Our Bonus Week

Ava wasn't set to arrive until tomorrow, September 15th... until we found out she was being growth restricted. After finding this out, we decided to move her "due date" up a week to last Thursday. This decision was one of the best decisions we could have made. Ava is a precious gift and we got a whole extra week of life to enjoy her! If it weren't for that decision, I wouldn't be laying here, in bed, blogging to you with a sleeping baby on my chest.

After 5 long days in the hospital, we got to come home. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fantastic that c-section moms get to stay in the hospital for a longer period of time to heal and recuperate, however, this momma just wanted her own bed and space... and nobody coming into her room every 2 hours to check vitals.

Coming home was so nice, however, I already failed her as the second child. We didn't get a "coming home" picture for the baby book. Well, come to think of it, we didn't get one for Isaac either so nevermind, I don't feel THAT bad :)

She has been adjusting to homelife amazingly well. She feeds every 3 hours, give or take. It's no secret that we swear by the Babywise sleep scheduling method, but this time around we're doing things a little differently. Isaac was sleeping through the night by 10 weeks, so we figured we'd do the same for Ava and hope for similar results. However, the book suggests that we should wake her up over night every 3 hours to feed. This is just silly. If Ava wants to sleep longer than 3 hours between feedings, we'll let her.

She's gone about 4 - 4 1/2 hours between her night time feedings which has been fantastic. No, its not a ton extra sleep for us, but we'll take it. We're on the right track to her going all night, and come on, the girl is 6 days old. What more could we ask for??

Isaac still adores his sister. He can't get enough kisses from her. This morning was the first morning he referred to her as "his baby," it was so cute! He loves watching her sleep which has become a problem when he goes into her room and flips on the light to "see her sleep." We've had to lay down some ground rules to follow during Ava's naps. We don't want to keep the house silent, but maybe just not play with the LOUDEST toys possible which is something he tends to migrate to.

Anyway, we are so blessed by this little girl and I could not be more grateful for my bonus week with her. She has the sweetest personality. She's a bit like Isaac in the sense that she just likes to watch you and observe.

Of course we're biased, but seriously, Ava is the cutest baby ever. We are so incredibly blessed.