4 months already? What?? [Pictures!]

As incredible as it may seem, Mia is already 4 months old. I've stopped counting how many weeks she is...after a while doesn't that just get confusing?! But yesterday was the 26th and so she is thus, a 4 month old baby.

Let's do a little photo re-cap with some commentary, shall we?


This was just a few hours after birth. We had no idea she'd be so tiny (barely a 4 and 1/2 lb'er!)...she didn't really fit into this 0-3month onesie that my BF from work got her. About 5 hrs after she was born we had to take her to the hospital. We thought, hmm, maybe this will be just a check-in and check-out. Or perhaps just an overnight stay.



Us at the hospital the day after she was born. Looking at this picture brings back lots of memories...how small our room was (and that bed!) and how 'swollen' I still was after delivery. At that point I wasn't sure how long we'd need to stay there, I thought, maybe just another day? That turned into 6.



She was so tiny...being swaddled with 2 blankets, wearing a little cap from the birth center (that we unfortunately lost!) that we couldn't put all over her head because of an IV. She put up with a lot during that first week and did amazingly well. Greg and I thought she was the strongest one in our family at that point. I think we shed more tears than she did with all the pricks and prods!



This was Mia at 1 month and obviously at home and happy to be there! (Too bad I already lost that bow -- where did it escape to?!) She had already grown quite a bit...I think she was closer to 7lbs by this point. That first month was very tough, for obvious reasons. I tend to be a pretty optimistic person, and so even when people told me, "The first 6 weeks are really rough, then it gets better," I thought, "Maybe it won't be that way for us, maybe it'll be 'easy'." Well, I'm going to be honest with you...it was very difficult. I was blessed with a healthy pregnancy and a great delivery, but the postpartum period kind of hit me like a mac truck. With 2 hospitalizations and such, it was really hard for me to focus on recovery and just getting into the newborn groove. But as a family we learned A LOT and Greg & I grew SO much closer as a team. I've been very very thankful for him and for my kind family and friends.



2 months. We were out at Panchero's having lunch after church. This is when we started to get more 'adventurous' in our outings, which was really fun. The 2nd and 3rd months didn't seem nearly quite as difficult and I have to say I was starting to enjoy myself? That was nice. She was plumping out too! Check out them thighs.



3 months. You know - hang time with Daddy. Wear the same kinds of clothes and such. She had already found her voice and I'm pretty sure was voicing her opinion in this picture. I'll show her this picture later and ask her if she remembers what she was saying.



Close to 3.5 months...taken at Amy's wedding, courtesy of our favorite family friend photographer Laura (why did you move?!! :P) She's kind of gotten over the ridiculousness of all of us and going along with the flow, although she was not the happiest of babies during the ceremony. I heard that it was nice, and that I was featured in the post-ceremony slideshow a few times. I'll have to ask Amy to show it to me at some point!



Just this morning, at 4 months and 1 day old. Her official 4 month check-up is tomorrow and I'm sure she'll be somewhere around 13lbs. She was close to 13lbs when I unofficially weighed her about 2 weeks ago, so I'll be interested to see what it is "officially". I'm proud of the weight gain! The goal for healthy, full-term babies is for them to nearly triple their weight by the time they turn 1, or double it by 6 months. Since Mia was "small for gestational age" (SGA)/low-birth weight, she's already done that!! In my opinion, she pretty much looks "normal" now and is actually on the growth charts, if you're into that sort of thing.

There are still no real answers on why she was SGA or why I had a blood clot, other than that postpartum women are at very high risk for them and I guess I fell into that category. We've done several different tests now - Mia & Greg & I - to see if we had any disorders and everything came back "normal," which is a great thing, but doesn't answer our questions. So, perhaps some of it was just a fluke.

We're very thankful that things have gone so much better after those first few weeks and that our health is on the up and up. During those first few weeks, I would wonder, "Why do people have babies? This is so hard." Yet, it was only a few weeks later that I was thinking, "I could do this again...and I might want to." [Disclaimer: That was just an honest thought, not an announcement!] Babies are slightly addicting and Mia is no exception. My camera already knows to hone in on her if she's in the frame.

So to Mia, thank you for napping long enough for me to blog this. I really appreciate when you sleep. And please, keep staying sweet.

That's all.