Update for Monday

The nurse came by to take our bili numbers and they are down from 13.4 to 11 something. :) This means she can be done this evening! We will take her to get her heel poked on Wednesday morning to get a new reading and make sure her numbers don't rebound. She also gained three ounces since yesterday - another 3 and she'll be back at birthweight! :) Which they like to see happen by 10 - 14 days. Ha! My babies rock! Well, my babies and my milk. :) Either way - I'm taking credit for that one. Breastfeeding hurts like the dickens. (I know - even with #3!)

Too Much Info Alert: Do not read if you don't want to... Or if you're a boy... Or a prudish girl...

Hopefully soon we will see an improvement on the feeding front. My blisters are all peeling and the silicone gel pads seem to be helping the healing along. Latching on still is terrible but it hasn't been fun with any of the kiddos so I guess I'm just a sensitive gal. I tell you - with all that we have gone through I can see why so many don't stick it out. If it wasn't the best thing for my babies there is no way I would voluntarily go through this! But after a week or so I know everything will be fine and then it's such a great experience! I still love it now - maybe I'm a sadist. :) But there is just such a sweet feeling when you can feed your baby and have that cool bonding time. Plus it appeals to the fru-gal in me that I'm saving myself thousands of dollars.

Back to our regularly scheduled blogging: Suitable for all ages!
Since everything is doing a bit better with baby I have noticed such a lift in spirits! I feel so happy! Rick spoke with work today about taking time off and (thanks to Steve and Meredith for letting us know about this) it looks like he'll be able to get some paid time off without dipping into his vacation hours! Yay! It was such a relief for him - the difference is his manner was immediate and he seems so much happier. I didn't realize (and I'm not sure he did either) how much that was weighing on him. Add to that the fact that we have some people from church bringing in dinner tonight and, once again, we are feeling so blessed that we have such awesome support to relieve some of the load and stress that comes with a new baby! I know we are both pretty tired but knowing that we are being so taken care of is such a boost to the morale! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone - and especially to a loving Father in Heaven who sees fit to so abundantly pour out his love and blessings on us. It is so humbling and sweet to feel the love of the service of others.

Let's see - I gave Nathan a haircut (which he has needed for over a month - it was bad) last night by standing him up on the sink and letting him watch. I also kept telling him how handsome he was and that Olivia (his and Ashlyn's friend and Shelly's daughter) would Love it! It is sad to note that a #6 actually took hair off the back of his head - it was that long! (For those who do the clippers like we do). The back is usually a #1/#2 combo, middle's a #4 and the top's a #6. He had such a nice time today - I read him a bunch of books after I took Ashlyn to school and then he played with Daddy for a bit. It's so nice to have us all home to enjoy this time together. Again - just another great blessing for which we are so thankful! Our cup runneth over - ya know?

I'm going to try and take advantage of Rick being home and get a little tidying up done - Rick's already started some of that for me. And hopefully we'll all get good naps today. Especially us bigger folk - we sure aren't getting much sleep at night. Feeding every three hours doesn't seem too bad as far as losing sleep goes until you actually try it. It takes 45 minutes or so to do both sides and change a poopy dipe. Then some quick burping, you have to fall back asleep again, you rest for maybe an hour and a half and then you immediately wake up about 20 minutes before the next feed because you can hear that your baby is starting to wake up and you need to be ready to go pretty soon - it's like your body knows it's coming and you wake up in preparation.

Thanks everyone for your calls and well wishes - it's so nice to know you all care and love our little one!

Have a great day!