Right now, Lydia is sleeping on the bed next to me, wrapped up in a little fleece blanket. She's been asleep for an hour or so, and I've managed to email some photos to my parents (at last!) and have a long talk with Neil, but I've only just now realised I could have been finishing my birth story!! When I came to do it, I decided I probably won't have long now before Lydia wakes up, so I will just throw in a quick general update here for now instead. With photos, if I can get those up in time! :)
Here's a photo taken on the 25th, so I guess she was 2 days old (though she was born at almost midnight on the 23rd, so she wasn't quite that old yet!) - I was holding her in my lap, fast asleep, and just GAZING at her, and marvelling that she's REAL, and she's here and she's mine! I just couldn't believe it, it was such an amazing feeling! So I took a photo to capture the memory of the moment:
And here's a photo of her from earlier that day. She wasn't all that settled so most of the photos I took didn't turn out great, but I took them to show my mum how she looked in purple/lavender - my mum is shopping!! :)
I am SO enjoying the girly clothes!! :) Lydia doesn't have a big selection of clothes in her current size - MUCH to my delight, she did fit the tiny baby size clothes after all! :) She only weighed 7lbs 5oz at birth, and "tiny baby" fits up to 7lbs 8oz, but some brands are quite generous as well. There's absolutely no point in me putting her in the newborn size (up to 10lbs) because they swamp her, and the shoulders slip off her tiny slender shoulders, etc! Bless her, she's so tiny! I adore having tiny babies - I like big chubbly babies too, but when I have a tiny one, I get to have both! ;) They start tiny and go through the bigger, chubbier stage after that. Even though she's near the top end of the weight range for the tiny baby size clothes, some of them are still a bit big on her. As far as the million cute little outfits go, nearly all of them are size newborn or above, so right now she has some sweet little girly sleepsuits, a couple of dungaree outfits and lots of whites and unisex stuff that the boys have worn (I confess I haven't put her in a single unisex outfit yet! ;) ). She has long arms though, and the sleeves on the tiny baby size clothes are a bit short. Many of the boys have had long arms as new babies too, with the same issue with clothes. Neil has longer than average arms, so it's his doing! ;)
Lydia has Neil's hands and feet - she has SUCH long fingers! Her fingernails were really long when she was born as well, and in the first two days she was quite unsettled and didn't sleep much. She breastfed almost all the time, and if she wasn't feeding she was crying, and the unsettled thing meant that she scratched her face a bit, and I had to put her in a sleepsuit with those foldover sleeves so that she couldn't scratch herself. I am always so nervous about cutting new baby nails! They are still long, but she isn't scratching herself at all. In fact, she's such a totally calm and laid-back baby now.
For the first two nights I really didn't get any sleep - none at all the first night, but for 30 minutes near the end of it, I think. Lydia fussed and was unsettled all the time, and I was a bit uncomfy from the birth still. The second night I didn't get to sleep until 3 or so in the morning, and I was starting to feel a bit frantic and desperate about getting some sleep by then! She was feeding or crying, or seeming uncomfy in her tummy all the time. Then suddenly she slept a couple of hours straight and so did I, thankfully.
I wrote the last entry here the next day, and by the end of that day, I could tell my milk was comimg in. My breasts were much more full and heavy, and I was delighted to get instant liquid when I did a quick check by hand expressing. Lydia took long swallows when she fed and seemed more settled, so I figured she must have been hungry for more than colostrum by the time the milk arrived! :) Well I think that was confirmed that night, as the two of us slept for TEN HOURS!! Such a difference compared with the nights before! Not ten hours straight of course - she woke to feed several times, but soooo peacefully. I was brought to by the sweetest thing - a pair of tiny rosebud lips sort of "pecking" hopefully at the side of my breast! Even half asleep, I still completely melted at the cuteness of it! :) No sounds with the sweet pecking as such, and I only had to position myself a bit better, tummy to tummy with my sweetie-pea, latch her on, and fall asleep again! She must have fallen asleep as she took her fill because the next thing I knew, there was that darling nibbly-nibbly thing going on again and the clock said it was 2 or 3 hours later. So lovely! :)
And since then, Lydia has been a different baby! Calm, relaxed, easy-going... She feeds plenty, and sleeps when she isn't feeding, usually for 2-3 hours at a time. I know it's still early days, but I'm hoping she'll stay laid-back and happy! She has alert times as well, for a short little while before sleeping again.
Here is a photo of her being peacefully asleep the day after my milk came in (look how long her fingers are!!):
That night I got photos of Arthur and Matthew holding Lydia at bedtime. They all love her SO much! Arthur is especially taken with her and constantly asks to hold her. The first time I handed her over to him, I was astounded by how confidently he handled her! He just took her from me in a second, no hesitation or awkwardness about where to put his hands or how to pick her up. He handled her like an adult, and an experienced one at that! Look at him loving his baby sister... :)
And here's Matthew holding her. Nathan was patiently waiting his turn, bless him - sooo keen to hold her and have his photo taken too, but things were melting down in the bedroom and Neil needed everyone to come to bed NOW, in the end, so Nathey had to wait until the next day.
And there's much more to write, but Lydia is awake and fussing now so I will stop, post this, and hope to add more tomorrow.
Thanks for all the lovely comments and congrats! :)