Well, things are finally looking up in the nursing department. Verity is still a slow eater, but she's gotten tons better at nursing, and from our scale at home it looks like she is all the way up to 9 pounds. Yay! I would say she is about 2 weeks behind where my other babies have been at this point, so she's taking as long as a 2 week old instead of a 4 week old. But things are getting better! She is a good sleeper, especially at night. I've been feeding her around 11:00 (so putting her down about midnight because she takes so long!), and then she hasn't been waking up until 7:00 or even 7:30. So I personally am feeling much better and less foggy-brained, giving me hope that I will be able to get back into teaching and everything else!
But it has overall been a more difficult post-partum month. A lot of that was because of my expectations. I fully expected to recover quickly and get right back into our routine, and really, I *did* recover quickly! I didn't have an infection like I had with Drew or anything like that. But I completely failed to even consider the possibility that my baby would not cooperate with this plan, so it was hard for me to let go of my expectations, especially as far as school went for the younger kids, and just relax. I started reading Unglued by Lisa TerKeurst, and the book has been helpful for me right now. I love her sort of "theme" in the opening chapter--"I can face things that are out of my control and not act out of control." Because I know that God is in fact in control, and I can trust his plan.
God has given me several little reminders of his sovereignty over the past few weeks. One is regarding our Rivendell schedule. When I wrote up the syllabi for anatomy and for life science, I planned on starting teaching again on Oct. 28, figuring that would be plenty of time. I did not plan on teaching on Dec. 9, because the elementary co-op was supposed to be performing a play that day, and I wanted to see it, as well as have the older boys go and support their younger siblings. But at our kick-off meeting in September, we got the surprising news that the lady who was going to be in charge of the play had decided to drop out (we miss you, Michelle!), so now Dec. 9 was just going to be a regular day of co-op. Now I didn't need that extra day--but I really could use another day on this end. So I am going to take one more week of break, going back to teaching on Nov. 4 instead. What a blessing! I really want to take some time to just enjoy this last newborn stage. I think it will be easier to do that, now that nursing isn't quite the battle every time! I always tell new moms that even thought it *seems* like this phase takes forever, it really is over so very quickly. So now I need to follow my own advice!
Another little sign was that I found my exact same nursing pump (well, quite a bit newer and less used, LOL) on craigslist for $10! From a person who lived about 5 minutes away! (Remember, my pump had no tubing or anything--all parts are dishwasher safe, so it's really not yucky or weird. Plus, all I really needed was the motor. I can just use my own bottle and the part that goes on the nipple!) So that was a real blessing as well. Hopefully this one will be able to make it for a year or so.
The people from our church have been such a blessing too. When Jacob emailed me after Verity was born to set up the takethemameal schedule, I almost told him to just not worry about it. We were fine! And I didn't want anyone to feel like they had to cook up a ton of food to feed our crowd. But I didn't say that, and it has been so wonderful to have meals from friends these past 4 weeks. SO much good food! Enough for leftovers! And how lovely to not have to worry about cooking. That probably would have sent me over the edge, LOL.
Also, one of my friends from church, Holly, gave me a bag of adorable newborn girl clothes right before Verity's birth, passing them down from her daughter. I was so thankful, because I really didn't have very many newborn outfits at all, but I did think, "Well, it's so sad that these will hardly get any use at all, since my babies are all so big . . ." Ha! Verity will be 4 weeks old tomorrow, and we are still wearing the newborn clothes from Holly! Maybe next week we'll be into 0-3 month clothes. So what a blessing that bag of clothes has been!
It will be interesting to see what lessons are in store for the next few weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment