A farewell to pants. Maternity pants that is

You may recall when I first outgrew normal pants. I wrote about it here. It was then that I was introduced to the wonderful world of maternity pants and bade farewell to nuisances such as zippers and buttons. I eventually outgrew that first pair of maternity jeans and went on to a larger pair I found at a thrift store. A beautiful marriage between sweat pants and jeans, they served me well. I never had to worry if my fly was down, since I didn't have one. I never dealt with “muffin top”, since my huge elastic pants went from my crotch to my boobs. And my maternity jeans never dug into my stomach leaving a judgey little red imprint where the button had been.

This week marked an important milestone: my return to regular pants. Now, let's not get crazy: these are not my pre-pregnancy pants. They're some jeans that a friend gave me specifically for after my c-section because they're 2 sizes too big. Or, they would have been before I got pregnant. Now, they barely zip. Damn you, bagels of days gone by!!

Anyhow, to commemorate this occasion: a haiku.

Goodbye preggers jeans

Elastic waist, no judgement

Hidden muffin top

This week:

How old is Claire?: 3 weeks

3 weeks old!

How Claire is eating: This week we introduced the bottle in hopes that Russell could take over 1 of the 3 overnight feedings. Claire took to it immediately and, thank you Jesus, has no problem going back and forth between the boob and the bottle. This means that I get to sleep for a luxurious 4 hours at a time!! Before having a baby, that sentence would have sounded crazy to me.

How Claire is sleeping: After a couple weeks of trial and error, we're starting to figure this one out. For now at least. Claire's actually been sleeping in her crib. It's funny- the crib is the last place we considered. For people my parents age, it was probably the only option, but after reading umpteen parenting books and the entire internet, we were convinced that she'd either need to sleep in some kind of cradle in our room or she'd sleep in our bed. We tried both of those (plus many other options), and then finally, in exhaustion, gave up and tried to the crib. And it worked! Now, it doesn't work every time, but usually she's in there at least half the night.

4 AM party at my house!

Update on the harness: Great news on the harness front this week! We went to KOC to see Dr. Crawford and he told us that Claire's hips “want to stay in socket”, which of course, is the goal. He said that if we were the kind of people who celebrated over a bottle of wine, that night was a good excuse! We are SO happy and SO relieved. We have 3 more weeks of 24/7 harness time, then an ultrasound which will hopefully show more progress, and after that..... WE GET TO TAKE THE HARNESS OFF FOR 12 HOURS A DAY. Praise Jesus. Seriously.

How much weight Claire's gained: Now, we're just weighing her using the scale in our bathroom, so this may not be accurate, but Ye Olde Bathroom Scale says Claire weighs 8 lbs, 8 oz (including the harness of course). Funny, she's nearly a month old and still doesn't weigh as much as I did AT BIRTH. Y'all, I told you I was big, but I didn't tell you I was actually the biggest baby in the hospital. I was so damn big, they used me for a bathing demonstration because I was visible from the back of the room. VISIBLE FROM THE BACK OF THE ROOM. My poor, tiny mom....

Hotties

How much weight I've lost: Ha! Speaking of visible from the back of the room.....more like, visible from the Mars Rover. :) Actually, I can't complain because the weight really is coming off. It's starting to come off a bit slower, but I'm steadily losing. Currently, I've lost 25 pounds (of the 48 I gained).

C-section recovery: Going well! I'm off all the pain medication and just a little sore. Russell and I took the baby to World's Fair Park most days this week for a walk, and I could go a little farther each day, which was encouraging. Warning, this sentence is about to get gross, so if you're a boy or easily offended, avert yo eyes – I'm still dealing with some bleeding, which I notice gets heavier if I've walked a lot the previous day. Dr. Google says this can last up to 6 weeks, so I'm not worried – it's more annoying at this point.

Milestones this week: Claire went to her first party (Happy Birthday, Bethany!!) and we celebrated my first Mother's Day with Claire's first lunch in a restaurant. Lots of firsts!

My neighbor (who happens to own the best bakery  in town) brought us a Mother's Day cake!! Best neighbors ever!