Vienna Edythe

Vienna Edythe was born at 1:59 on her due date Thursday, September 28th.  She was 8 lbs 2 oz and 21.25" long.  She has super long fingers and toes just like her Aunt Michelle and her Dziadzi (aka the polish word for grandpa that my dad is going by, pronounced jah-jee).  She loves to have her hands up by her face and will use her little fists to box my boobs while I'm trying to feed her.  She's always  pursing her lips into the cutest pouty face and makes lots of funny grunting noises.

I'll definitely be writing a full birth story post, but the short version is that I labored at home for 24 hours, had to fight the urge to push for almost 5 hours while I was in the hospital waiting to be fully dilated, and then pushed for 41 minutes... all without even considering getting an epidural.  It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but also the most rewarding.  Dave was an amazing birth partner and I definitely couldn't have done it without my amazing doula Keli!

It has been 8 days now and it feels like she's been here for months.  We were discharged from the hospital on Saturday afternoon and the days have been filled with breastfeeding, snuggles, and trying to sneak in as much sleep as we can, plus lots of visitors bearing food and gifts.

Knock on wood, I think we ended up with a pretty easy baby!  She is a sleeping pro and rarely fusses for more than a few moments... other than around 4 am.  She still has her days and nights confused and our biggest struggle is actually waking her up to feed during the day.  Breastfeeding wasn't going that great in the hospital, so I started pumping from day 1 to give her bottles when she can't be bothered to nurse.  I think all that pumping is the source of my awesome milk supply.  I've already started my freezer stash for when she heads to daycare in January.

I've been trying to get this post together for the past 3 days... so here comes a photo dump and hopefully I'll get to post again soon!