The Day She Was Due

This is the day that Molly was due to be born. It seems strange to think that she should still have been in my belly all this time -- I feel like her birth day was a long, long time ago. It's hard now to imagine a world that didn't have Molly in it. Although I'm happy and relieved that she's here with us, safe and sound, I can't say that I'm not a little sad that I didn't make it to term. It would have been nice to have lasted out those few extra weeks and been able to have a nice, normal birth experience and a take home baby. But, there's no use crying over spilt milk (unless it's breastmilk, in which case one must cry ;) -- I'm grateful that we made it as far as we did and that Molly has done so well. She's a beautiful, amazing little girl and an absolute joy -- we don't need to make the pages of Vanity Fair to know that!

So, as of today, Molly is officially newborn according to her adjusted age. Even though she's five weeks old now, she gets six weeks of preemie credit as far as her developmental milestones go. Since she's a later gestation preemie, chances are she'll catch up to her actual age much faster than Max did. She's definitely doing well in the eating and growing department. Since she now weighs 8 lbs, 15 oz -- she's gained more than three pounds since she was born. I think it is safe to say that she would have been a good sized baby if she had decided to stay put. As a comparison, when Max made it to his original due date (he was three months old at the time), he only weighed a hair over 6 lbs. I'm starting to think that Max had better be nice to his little (big!) sister. ;)

I hate to jinx things by posting this, but I think we might finally have a nursing baby! Molly started nursing full feeds earlier this week and she hasn't had to have any supplementary bottles in over two days. I've been able to cut back on my pumping, in an attempt to get my supply to meet Molly's actual demand (instead of the demand of Molly times three!). It's still a bit of a struggle to get her to latch on properly and remember what those darn things are for, but we've made tons of progress in the last couple of days. So, instead of taking an hour and a half to feed Molly (attempted nursing, followed by a bottle feeding, followed by pumping, followed by cleaning up bottles and pump parts), it only takes a half an hour and I no longer end up with dishpan hands! It took Max six months before he got to this point, so we managed to shave five months off of the process (thank goodness!).

Max is still keeping us laughing and on our toes. He had his very first ice cream cone this week. He's been a fussy eater lately and is highly suspicious of any unfamiliar food. When I presented him with his vanilla ice cream cone (Guernsey Farm ice cream, no less!), he gave me the stink eye and initially refused to try it. He finally took the teeniest, tiniest lick and then his eyes lit up and he started signing "more, more, more." After that I didn't have any trouble convincing him to finish it (even though Mom had to help him out a bit).

Max had a play date with one of his NICU buddies yesterday. It is always so funny watching two toddlers chase each other around. Each of them was convinced that the other one was the "baby." To make up for the fact that Max climbed over her and pulled her hair during their last play date, his little friend decided that this time she'd give him a run for his money. They played very nicely together, even with the highly desirable toys (which turned out to be a puppy board book and a play cell phone). They kept taking the toys from each other, but nobody got too crabby about it. Max kept signing for "more" and saying please when his friend took away a toy he wanted -- too cute! Max seemed to enjoy getting out of the house with Mom, especially since his attention-hogging little sister didn't come along.

Dad is going on a golf trip next week, so Mom will be home alone with the babies. I'm getting fairly good at juggling two little ones, so I think we'll manage just fine. I'll just have to make sure the fridge is well stocked and I've run all the necessary errands, since we're not ready for Molly to make her public debut yet. Wish me luck!