what's up monthly. (alternately titled, one month in photos of babies and cheese boards).

Oh gosh.  I haven't written a Friday post for the last few weeks, so I'm outrageously behind.  I'm going to just cover it all in one super epic post to get you caught up to speed.

I've filled you in on our most pertinent news, but there's been other stuff going on.  (Admittedly, most of it is still at least related to Juniper's birth, but I think you could have probably guessed that.)

Backing aaaaaall the way up, we took this forty-week photo on the Sunday before I went into labor.  Here's where I divulge a secret: my pregnancy photos were all taken a few days before I actually rolled over into the week displayed on the board.  Why?  Because I actually get dressed on Sundays, so even though that wasn't the day of the week that my gestational count rolled over, I figured I'd be happier than if I waited until Thursday each week and ended up looking like a hobo in every photo.

There is a NINE POUND BABY in that belly right there.  HOW THO?

All that to say, that's why I have a 40-week photo, even though I didn't actually make it to 40 weeks.  Whatever.  This is the last photo documentation of my pregnancy with Juniper.

Okay.  Then some major stuff happened, including having a baby, and the subsequent hospital stay.  Since I already blogged about that stuff, I'll skip over it all in this post, but go back and read the links if you missed it!

The first morning with Juniper home, she was the main attraction.  The kids were so excited to wake up to still find her here!

We spent the next few days ogling her.

I tried and tried to get my milk supply to come in, but it just wouldn't.  Juniper was sleeping a lot (for her first five days of life, I even had to wake her up through the night just to feed her at regular intervals), and her eyes and skin were beginning to turn yellow.  At her three-day follow up appointment, it was discovered her bilirubin levels were quite high.  The diagnosis of jaundice came with every-other-day doctor appointments and lab visits for blood draws, as well as a bili-blanket I was directed to keep her on as much as possible over the next few days.  It sounds simple enough, but the one they gave us was kind of defective, and would turn off if it was bumped/moved, which made it hard to hold her while she was on it.  It was a rough stretch.

You better believe that when the finnicky light would let me hold her, I'd just sit there as still as possible for hours.

Because I was taking so long to recover from labor, and I couldn't carry her car seat on my own, Todd and the kids drove me to all her doctor appointments, and Todd would carry her to the door for me before going back to sit with the kids in the van while I went in for the appointment and lab draws.  It would often take close to two hours, so we were grateful for the new van - the novelty and the extra space seemed to make the situation less unbearable for those stuck in the car.

Also, side note: how do you know you bought your giant passenger van from a Baptist youth group (besides the fact that the faint outline of the former "______ Baptist Church" vinyl decals are still mildly visible on the side of the van)?  Leftover gems like this:

Good Friday and Easter took place later in Juniper's first week.  I didn't have much in me in terms of energy to go 'big,' but we did do a cheese board on Friday night, and a simple ham dinner on Sunday.  (In our pajamas, because we didn't get dressed and go to church Sunday morning.)  We also did a cheese board for lunch on Sunday.  So three big but super simple spreads in one weekend.

Sunday evening, Atticus executed an Easter egg hunt he had planned for the other kids.  He had spotted some discounted plastic eggs at one of the Amish stores we were in a month or two before, and he bought them with his own money and kept them a secret from the siblings for all that time.  He had so much fun hiding the eggs, knowing how much joy he'd bring to everyone.  (Though, we hadn't thought through what he would put in the eggs, so together we put a single last-minute Altoid in each egg before it was hidden.  Anticlimactic, but I didn't hear any complaints from the peanut gallery.)

Then, we spent another week ogling Juniper.

Callista's interest in (and possessiveness of) Juniper regulated and got much more manageable, but it was still present.

This past Monday was the day Todd was supposed to go back to work (he got two weeks of paid paternity leave!), but since it was Penelope's birthday, he used a day of vacation time to get to spend one more day at home celebrating with us.  I let the kids choose all the meals on their birthdays, and this year Penelope chose peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches for breakfast, takeout from a local barbecue joint for dinner, and... cheese board for lunch.  So we put together yet another cheese board.

Tuesday was Todd's first day back at work, and while it has been a transition having him gone, and we both are actively praying that one day he'll land a job that allows him to work from home so he can be with us all the time, the first few days on my own haven't been nearly as overwhelming as I thought they'd be.  My bigger kids are so helpful in keeping the house running smoothly, and most of the kids are pretty independent.  Our church and our family have come alongside us in this time to provide meals, and friends have come over to help me fold laundry.  One friend has made my Amish run the last two weeks.  Another friend has offered to mow our lawn this weekend.  I'm so grateful for the help we're receiving.

Totally unrelated photo, but we even got some school done during these last few weeks.  Nothing too taxing, just cuddly reading time.

Juniper has been more alert this week, which I anticipated being the case now that her jaundice has cleared up and we've headed into the third week.  I swear, the hardest time with a baby is from the beginning of week 3 through the end of week 6.  Babies suddenly don't sleep as well at night, and often don't sleep much during the day, either.  They hit a couple of growth spurts in this window.  Meal trains and paternity leave dry up right around this time, and you're suddenly on your own with a baby that is suddenly much harder.  But I feel like a lot of grace was poured out this week, and I still have an overwhelming amount of help from the kids and our meal train.

In all, I think this drawing by Laurelai sums up the last few weeks: God is the best!

That's Laurelai and Jesus holding hands, if that's not immediately obvious.

the rest of our hospital stay (and how Juniper came home without a name).

I had Juniper at 12:40 p.m., and they let me rest in the delivery room for a couple of hours before moving me to a recovery room.  (This is the first hospital I've delivered in that doesn't allow you to triage, labor, deliver and recover all in one room.  My two cents: it's dumb to move laboring and recovering women if it's possible to just let them hunker down in one spot.  People With Any Say in the Matter should listen to me on this.)

All bundled up for our trek to an entirely different floor for recovery.

We spent the afternoon trying to rest after our nearly-sleepless night.  I also spent the day eating.  After a long pregnancy of not really doing much of anything, labor was really taxing, and recovery started off pretty rough.  Luckily for me, there were exactly two things on the hospital menu that didn't look absolutely disgusting, so I ate nearly my weight in salmon BLT's and omelets.  Out of Styrofoam boxes, because our hospital was really going for a "spa" vibe.

I've wondered why they offer those clear plastic bassinets to set your baby in when clearly you'll just want to hold them all the time.  But it's because the hospital knows you're the kind of mother who would spill ranch dressing on your baby if given the chance, so they provide a holding capsule for meal times.  The more you know.

The night went well - I had made it very clear to anyone who would listen to me that I didn't want people checking on us overnight.  It's weirdly difficult to keep staff from coming into your room at ungodly hours, turning on all the lights, talking in loud voices, and generally acting the way no decent human should at 3:00 a.m.  But throughout our stay, the nurses and staff were really respectful of our request for privacy.  Which was good, because even without their overnight visits, we were pretty tired.

I ate some more.  The kids visited.  I gave Juniper a bath.

We wrestled with name options.  All through our stay, we kept referring to Juniper as "The New Baby."  We had a short list of names we liked, but we were having a hard time deciding on one, and even then, we weren't sure what middle name to choose.

Newborns always have the most dazed, silly, adorable burp-time faces.

Inception.

We wanted to go home as soon as we could, so I told the nurses we'd like to stay until mid-afternoon on Tuesday so we could squeeze in one last nap before heading home.  But the nap came and went, and we still didn't have a name.  We had done all of our discharge requirements, we had packed everything up, and we still couldn't leave because we hadn't filled out the social security paperwork.  The nurse kept coming in and asking if we were ready to go, and we had to keep telling her no.  Eventually, she came in to tell us that she obtained special permission from the Records Lady for us to go home without a name chosen, and the hospital would call us the next day for the official word.

"WHYYYY HAVEN'T YOU PICKED A NAME FOR ME YET?!"

One last jaundice check before our departure.

Sleeping through burp-time, but sure dressed sassy.

So finally, at 6:15, we loaded up The New Baby and headed home, sans name.

Even though she was a major chunk by newborn standards, there isn't a newborn in the entire world who doesn't look like a verifiable pipsqueak the first time they're loaded into an infant carrier.  I'm going to start calling her The Big Tiny.

It was so very strange to walk in the door and tell the kids she still didn't have a name!  So The New Baby she was for the next few hours, until we finally pulled the trigger on Juniper Elise.  Whew.  Rough process.

In my next post (tomorrow??) I'll tell you how we decided on her name, and what it means!

introducing the kids to juniper.

Now that we're a full two weeks out from the event itself, I figured it's high time to start documenting our early days with our sweet girl.  It has been hard finding the time to blog - I rarely have two hands free, and when I do, Callista is dead-set on trying to write a blog post herself, so she won't leave the computer alone long enough for me to type!

The kids came to the hospital our second day there to meet Juniper.  It must've been a strange experience for them - because I went into labor so 'early' (it's all relative, but anything earlier than 40 weeks is early for me), we hadn't prepped them with plans for what to expect.  So they woke up the day of Juniper's birth to find a friend of mine sleeping here, and Todd and I nowhere to be found, since I went into labor overnight.  They were excited to learn it was "Baby Day!" but they didn't get to come see her until the following day.  In the meantime, my mom arrived and took over kid duty, and together they baked cupcakes to bring to the hospital for a Birth Day Party.

I hadn't been sure how Callista would respond to the new baby.  She had been around plenty of babies before, and while she seemed to like them, she was never super interested in them - unless I was holding them, in which case she'd try to push them off my lap.  I was a little worried she'd take some time to warm up to her new sister.

HOWEVER.  When everyone arrived at our room, and she saw Juniper for the first time, Callista pretty much launched herself out of my mom's arms and onto the bed, where she forcefully wrestled Juniper out of my arms and into her own.  As long as she was holding the baby, she was super calm and quiet.  But if anyone attempted to take Juniper away, or if anyone else held her, Callista would lose her mind.  It was clear she knew that this baby was her baby, and a strong bond was formed in her mind right away!

Everyone else was pretty much in awe as well.

(And just because Rocco's self-chosen and saucy pose cracks me up...)

After that, each kid took a turn holding their new sister.  I just love the unique expressions of amazement and joy on each of their faces!

Unfortunately, the entire time the bigger kids were having heartfelt moments with Juniper, Callista was not loving the fact that she was not the one with sole possession.

Luckily, custody was regranted eventually and things went back to relative calm.

 

It was finally time to break out the cupcakes, which distracted Callista long enough for my mom to actually get to hold Juniper...

… and eventually we discovered that my water cup was nearly as endearing to her as the baby, so she was pacified with that for a while.  (Until it was time for everyone to leave and both the baby and the cup were taken from her, at which point Callista had to be carried out the door, screaming.)

It was such a sweet visit getting to introduce Juniper to her big siblings.  They are so enamored with her!  Rocco continues to ask me every few days, "Do I get to keep my new sister forever??!"  It's such a beautiful thing to watch them love each other so fully and loyally from Day One.  I'm so grateful for each one of them!