Clara Two Months

Clara is already two months old and is getting cuter by the minute. I'm feeling much more like a normal person these days by getting more sleep and having more of a routine down. Amélie has started going to preschool three mornings a week which also helps me tremendously.

Clara is such a good little baby. She's grown so much in such a small amount of time (4.9 kilos) and she is long outgrown her newborn clothes and even on to some 6 month clothes.

Breastfeeding is still going well and she continues to feed every 2-3 hours during the day. She's down for the night around 9-10pm and will usually only wake up once in the night for a quick diaper change and feed until she's up for the day around 7. With Amélie I was so worried about a schedule, but Clara just follows along with Amelie's that it all kind of works out.

She's started smiling though it takes some work! She doesn't give out those smiles easily, but when she does it's just the best. I mean, look at the first pic - those eyebrows and that serious face!

Amélie is still very sweet with Clara, but is now asking me for more and more cuddles plus asking me to put the baby down when she needs me. I feel like one of them is always waiting for my attention and I can say that most of my meals are eaten in 5 minutes, standing up. Despite this, I'm much more relaxed about everything this time around. I don't freak out as much if one is crying, breastfeeding in public isn't a huge deal anymore plus I just know that it will all be fine sans worrying.

We're headed for our first trip to Italy since Clara was born in a couple of weeks. She already has her American passport and we are getting her Italian one next week. We have a busy October ahead with lots of weekend activities which we are looking forward to!

Clara One Month

Clara is already one month old and boy has this month been tough and amazing. Andrea had to go back to work after two weeks and being on my own with a newborn and toddler was hard work especially when I was sick for a couple of days. Despite this, being a family of four is just the best and we love having another baby.

Everything is getting better now and I had my first night's sleep of 6 hours the other night. Most days, Clara has been cluster feeding nonstop particularly from about dinnertime until 10ish. I am exclusively breastfeeding as I did with Amélie and for most of the month she was feeding every two hours. This past week, she can go about every 2-4 hours during the day and about every 4-5 hours at night.

We're usually all up by 7ish and getting out the door with two takes so much effort. Amélie has been so good with Clara. She grabbed a burp cloth for Andrea when she saw Clara spit up. She'll bounce Clara in her chair when she's crying and sing her a song. She even talks to her in a little baby voice and go up to her all the time to give her kisses. Sharing my attention with both can be difficult at times especially when Andrea had an overnight work trip last week and both needed to be cuddled to sleep. I heard Amélie quietly crying and then I heard her say to me that she was sad. (I think because I was giving Clara a lot of the attention.) Other than that, Amélie has been very good at patiently waiting for me to finish breastfeeding or tending to Clara.

Clara has definitely grown so much since she was born and is up from her birth weight of 6 pounds 15 ounces to 9 pounds. Most of her newborn onesies don't fit her anymore. She has really long legs and feet. She's also developed some baby acne on her cheeks that I am hoping will pass soon.

Lately, Clara has been loving cuddles all the time and I'll have her in my Solly baby wrap during the day so she can nap. Otherwise, it's her bouncy chair then the Cocoonababy plus Snuzpod at night which we used with Amélie.

I can't wait for Clara to start smiling and showing her personality, but overall she's been a very easy and hungry baby so far. We all love her very much. Happy one month Clara.

Clara's Birth Story

I had been so worried about the labor and delivery this time around since everything went so well last time. All my worrying in the end turned out to be nothing because Clara's birth story is actually very similar to Amélie's.

On my due date, August 2nd, I saw the midwife and we planned to do a membrane sweep that Saturday to try to bring on the labor if I hadn't had the baby by then. I was nervous about everything and started looking up induction methods while Andrea looked up statistics of when babies are actually born according to their due date.

I went to bed around 11pm that night after putting my phone down from my curiosity on inducing and thought it would be a few more days until the baby would come. Then around 12:30am, I felt my first contraction. I had been kind of crampy for the past couple of weeks, but I knew this time around it was for sure. I laid in bed for about 45 minutes and got through a few more contractions before waking Andrea up.

As the contractions progressed, I knew I had to get ready quickly since Amélie came within 5 hours. This time around, I also had to think of Amélie and made sure she had her breakfast ready (her favorite overnight oats) plus do a few things around the house. We were really lucky that Andrea's dad was already staying with us to watch Amélie so that was covered.  The contractions were about 8 minutes apart so in between is when I found time to get everything ready. By 2:30ish, I knew it was time to go to the hospital. My contractions were about 5 minutes apart and I almost felt like pushing with each one. When we called the hospital, they told us to come when we felt we were ready which was different than the first time as it took a few calls until they decided we should come in. Luckily, we only like less than 5 minutes from the hospital so we were there quickly.

Since it was the middle of the night, I went directly to the labor ward and not the birth center. After the midwife examined me, she said I was only 3cm dilated and 4cm meant established labor. Since Amélie came so quickly, they didn't send me home (they normally would have) to wait it out. At this point the contractions starting coming less than 5 minutes apart and were STRONG. Despite this, I opted for no pain relief when they offered and worked through it all with lots of words of encouragement from Andrea and staring at this really ugly rose picture against the back wall. Counting to 10 worked for some but not all the contractions. I really felt like pushing during each one of the contractions, but I wasn't sure if I should because I was only 3cm dilated. The midwife said to just go with how I felt and she actually didn't do another check to see how much far along I was so in my mind I still had a lot of contractions to get through before the baby came.

Soon after, my mucous plug came along then the midwife had to break my water as things were progressing really quickly. Before I knew it, I gave my first big push and the baby was already crowning. Then I had to do a bunch of controlled pushes, which was so difficult because I just wanted the baby out. With another final couple of pushes the baby was out and Clara was born at 4:25am. We immediately did skin to skin time while we waited for the placenta to be delivered and for the midwife to decide if I needed a couple of stitches, which I did get in the end.

After Clara was weighed and checked over quickly, the midwife left us alone for some bonding and feeding plus a shower and tea and toast for me. We moved down to the recovery floor and opted to pay for our own room for privacy. It was around 8am by this time and another midwife came soon after to check if I wanted to leave by lunchtime or later. They weren't kicking us out in any way, it's just normal to go back home soon after if there were no complications. I decided to wait it out a little to see how my bleeding plus Clara's feeding were going. After a visit from Amélie and Nonno, we just rested and worked on breastfeeding. By late afternoon, I was feeling ready to go home so we did our final checks with the pediatrician and the midwife and were home by dinner time with Amélie.

The midwife has already been to the house the next morning followed by another visit the day after. She came again on day 5 and will also visit on day 10 then a health visitor will come to check the baby. The home visits are the best since you don't have to trek down to the doctor's office or hospital.

It's been a week now and we're all doing fine now, just super tired and getting used to being a family of four. I'm so lucky that Andrea was able to take paternity leave this time around because I would be struggling with taking care of a toddler and a newborn. Cluster feeding from around dinner time until past midnight these past few days has been the hardest part so far. It feels never ending and that I'll never get any rest. Other than that, Clara is a good little baby, just a very hungry one.