She Feels Like Home – State of Grace, one week old

Grace is one week old today! I honestly still can’t believe she is even here. Her birth really caught me by surprise, 4 weeks early and at 2 am. On the way to the hospital we still hadn’t decided on a name but we figured at this point we would just wait until we saw her. We had a short list of names: Erin, Alice and Brennan. Brennan was the name that I had been rooting for. But earlier that day my Mom had asked us about middle names and I had said, “Grace”. She suggested Grace as a first name and that night I had suggested it to John. When she was born we both knew she was Grace.

Labor, delivery and recovery were much harder for me than they were when I had Jackson. I won’t go into the gory details (but trust me they were gory) but after I had Jackson I wanted the whole world to come visit. After I had Grace I wanted to just stay in our little bubble because I was more exhausted than I had been in my entire life. Luckily family and friends respected our wishes and by mid-afternoon we got to introduce Jack to his baby sister.

Jackson is very proud to be a big brother and is excited to help, though he’s more excited to be lazy at home and play Lego Batman because Grace’s arrival through a loop in all of our “Mommy and Jackson” plans.

I’m nursing Grace which is a first for me. When she was born we were able to do skin to skin contact, which I could not do with Jackson due to him not being able to maintain his body temperature. Something about the hour of skin to skin contact made me decide that I wanted to try to nurse. In the midst of a rough recovery that time that I spent with her curled on top of me was so perfect. She felt like home.

Everything feels different this time around. I’m not as overwhelmed or scared. And while it’s only a week in I’m a much more confident mother. I’m also not worrying the way I did with Jackson, as if every decision of every moment was some how going to affect the rest of his life. It’s a relief not to feel that way. And I’m hoping the crazy postpartum hormones stay far away.

Grace is a sleepy little baby right now and her cries aren’t wails yet. She’s a squirmy baby and loves to sleep or curl up on Dad’s shoulder. She is a petite little beauty and I think our entire family is smitten with her. And I feel beyond blessed to have a daughter.