Eliana's First Week

Eliana is 8 days old and I'm finally sitting down to post pictures and do a little recap. This week has been pure craziness. My recovery hasn't gone as smoothly as the last two times. I've been in a lot more pain this time. On the second day in the hospital, they noticed that I was getting an infection. The antibiotics they put me on made me sick to my stomach, which...if you've ever had a c-section, you know that's not something you want in your first days of recovery. It was pretty miserable. Most of my nurses were terrible this time. That really ruins the hospital experience. Marcelo was like, "Wow, I guess when it's your 3rd kid they're like, 'you're on your own'." Whether it's your first or your 6th, if it's a c-section, you need your nurses!! I might have to name names at the hospital and let them know about our experience. The nurse that took off my bandage was so rough, she ripped off my skin. A few other things that happened are too personal to put on this blog, but it was just ridiculous how bad the care was this time.

Anyway, negative stuff aside, here's the rest of the recap. This was the picture we took at 5am on our way out the door. (38 weeks) Um, yes, I flat ironed my hair and put on makeup. That's the beauty of a scheduled c-section.Here we are on day two. Our first family picture. I wish I would have taken a picture of my legs on this day. I had to stay in the bed for 24 hours and they were pumping me full of fluids through my IV, so I was swollen all over. But my legs? Holy elephantitis knee. It was pretty funny to look at.Day 3: This face cracks me up. She's my little Asian baby. We took her to our pediatrician, who is from Taiwan, and he said, "Are you sure she's not Asian?"Here's our baby girl about to leave the hospital. At one point, Marcelo was holding her and talking to her. I heard him say, "What are you doing? Are you going to bake me a cake?" I was like, what is he talking about? Ohhhh, her mittens. Got it.

Day 5: First bath. She was the first of my babies who didn't cry during her first bath. She just made angry little faces like this one and looked around like, "What's going on?"

Day 6: Here she is on the blanket my grandma crocheted for her. Diego thought the headband was pretty funny. He says, "I love my baby's spiky hair."I loooove her dainty little nose. And I'm so happy none of my kids got my ears! I have weird, big, elf-like ears. All 3 kids got their daddy's ears.We are crazy about this little girl. I love love love seeing how in love Marcelo is. It's the sweetest thing.

Eliana is, as our pediatrician says, "Jaunjees." (Jaundice.) She is the LAZIEST eater ever. That's been such a frustration to me this week. She eats for 5 minutes, falls asleep, and nothing we do will wake her up. I've even resorted to taking off her clothes and lightly rubbing her back/shoulder/leg with an ice pack. Nothing. She squirms a little and keeps sleeping. Unless it's the middle of the night. In the middle of the night she's happy to be awake for 3 hours straight. I. Am. Tired. But it's so so worth it. Last night I found myself just smiling at her and enjoying her even though it was 2:30 in the morning and she was showing no signs of tiredness. Anyway, we have to go back to the pediatrician in a week to see if her jaundice is better. In the meantime, I'm trying to feed her as often as she'll let me and really working on keeping her awake long enough to get in a full feeding.

The boys have been C-R-A-Z-Y. Yesterday was exceptionally bad. They're both acting like babies, which we expected, but what we didn't expect is the feeling of resentment we've been getting from them. We've tried really hard to give them extra praise and attention, and they've been spending a ton of time doing fun things with Tata, but they're still acting out. Celo keeps yelling at us and has started hitting Diego. Diego has been throwing tantrums like a 2 year old that are really out of character for him. Last night Marcelo and I were at the end of our rope. I said a little prayer asking for inspiration to know what to do and how to help the kids adjust and get them to behave. We had a family meeting and introduced a new sticker chart system. Diego was really into it. Celo....well, Celo's kind of a hopeless cause right now. But we're going to give it a shot and see if it helps.

Today my mom has the boys, so I've taken advantage and have caught up on the blog and on emailing pictures to family members who have been hounding me for them all week. And now I'm going to shut off my phones and sleeeeeeeeeeeep.