The past few days have been a bit of a blur, as Luka was able to come home to us last Friday, April 8th! We are so happy to have him home and are also really happy that he is still in the sleepy newborn stage where he essentially falls asleep after eating a meal and sleeps until the next one. I think we were both a little terrified to head into the weekend with the newness of managing three children, but thankfully, we pulled it off with little incident (well, other than a pretty good dose of exhaustion!). It feels so good to have him home from the NICU. There is something so, so weird about walking around in the postpartum period without the baby you just gave birth to....it's unnatural and disorienting and just plain sad. So, here we are....trying to figure out how this whole new life works together, and I think it is going to be a very good life we have built. Here is a photo of Luka's first walk....in the April sunshine, no less!
Miles and Anina are completely enamored by their new brother and are finding it fun to hold him, help feed him, get the breast pump parts together, and pretty much anything else they can do to "help" out. They are acting out in other ways, though....a lot of teasing each other, breaking down for no apparent reason, and generally being hard little critters to parent right now. I'm sure we'll all get back on track sooner or later....can we have sooner, please? They will be going to preschool only 3 days/week beginning in May, so I'm really looking forward to having them all home a bit more while we plan some adventures together as a family (I'm also a little scared at how I'll manage them all alone, but at least we have a little more time to get those ducks in a row!). Here is a picture of Anina "helping out" with the breastpump....oh, wait, she's actually pumping herself!
Alexander has been off of work for the past two weeks, and I'm already panicking a bit about him returning to work next week. Somehow having this time with my mom and then with him home to help me recover has been very, very sweet and loving. Being on my own during the day next week -- the 3-4th week after Luka's birth -- I will be headed even further into my own recovery, which has been slower than I would have expected. I was doing great those first 2 weeks, but think I might have overdone it physically (hard not to do with 2 other kiddos!), which set me back a bit. At any rate, the emotions are still raging somewhat and I still find myself teary about the poignancy of Luka's pregnancy, birth, and entrance into this world. Somehow the experience of creating another little person is so huge and so transient that it's hard to just hold onto what that feels like. And I never want to forget what that feels like, because it is incredible. Even with all of the pregnancy complications and bedrest and craziness of the whole deal, it was still a huge....and now we have this sweet, perfect little baby next to us...how is that possible!?!?!?