The first week

“God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated between the light and the darkness. God called to the light: ‘Day,’ and to the darkness He called: ‘Night.’ And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”

Bereshit (Genesis) 1:3-5

Only seven days have gone by and yet already it feels as though too much time has passed to adequately catch up the blog world with our baby girl.

Our baby girl

Some notes to get started:

She gets her name tomorrow morning at services. I’ll update the blog in the afternoon assuming she sleeps through the witching hours of 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

She had her first well-baby visit at Tipat Chalav today, not including an extra visit we made on Monday to meet with a fabulous lactation consultant. As of today, she weighs 4 kilo (8.8 pounds) exactly (would’ve been more but she peed right before they put her on the scale). She is 53 cm (21 inches) and already seems bigger than when she came out, but they didn’t measure her height until today. She’s a bit disproportionate — she fits into NB-3 months tops, but 3-6 month bottoms. She moved up a size in onesies today, mostly on account of torso length, which means they fit her lengthwise but are a little baggy all around. She doesn’t seem to mind though.

After a nursing failure to launch, things are going swimmingly. You need a lot of things to be in place for nursing to work. Your milk has to come in – check. The baby has to be able to suckle – check. You have to have nipples that point outward … absent. Fortunately, Medela makes these great nipple guard thingees that make your breasts go from shotputesque to Madonna in that weird “Express Yourself” video from yesteryear. Voila! Nursing made easy.

Note to self: If you need a nipple shield in order to feed your baby, don’t leave the house for your well-baby appointment without said nipple shield. Or a bottle of expressed milk. Or a bottle to mix an emergency bottle of formula that you would have bought at the makolet out of the fear of your child beginning to scream and you not being able to feed her. There goes that Mother of the Year award.

Cloth diapering is going well. We’re doing a bit more laundry, but really, I think the bulk of that is baby clothes that get milk on them and our clothes that get milk and other sundry fluids on them. The diapers are small and few in number — we only have 13 covers and that by itself would only make about a third of a load. Indeed, if we were purists that waited until we had a whole load of just diapers, we’d be waiting an awful long time. I’ll try and do a whole post on the cloth diapering at a later date. I’m reluctant to make any pronouncements on how great they are until we’ve been using them for a bit longer, but so far, so good.

One thing I did notice: The diapers are ridiculously good at wicking away moisture. So much so that you can’t tell if the diaper is wet just by opening it up and touching the top layer. What with her urine being very light in color, you pretty much have to pop it off and see if it weighs a lot. This is a great thing for the time being — it means our baby’s bottom is nice and dry and even the wet, mustardy breast milk poos get absorbed very well — but it seems to be counterintuitive to the general argument that cloth-diapered babies potty train earlier because they can feel that they are wet. If we waited to change her until she started crying because of a dirty diaper, we’d still be waiting. We usually check her before and after eating and if we hear a fart (and my golly, the girl got my genes, because she can break wind with the best of them).

Another thing I noticed: Folks have odd reactions to the cloth diapers. I suppose I would too, but since we only used disposables for a couple days, I’ve forgotten that what we’re doing is somewhat abnormal (or at least rare). The nurses at both appointments were somewhat taken aback when they saw them. One didn’t really comment on them, but asked if I liked them and if they were a lot more work for me (no, but maybe for Daddy ). The other thought they were really pretty and asked if they were available in Israel (we’re using Fuzzi Bunz and had the baby in a pale pink diaper — yes I am a dork and coordinate them to the outfits she’s wearing — girl’s gotta learn to accessorize).

My stitches hurt. I fear coughing and sneezing now far more than I ever feared giving birth.

And finally! My adoptive family grew by another grandbaby today! Mazal tov to the big brother and sweetest sister-in-law on the birth of their little baby boy!

More stories and photos to come as we find time to post them.