17 days

 Sweet little Jorja has been in our family for 17 days now.  She is a precious baby who loves to be snuggled and held.  She sleeps pretty good for being so small.  We can usually get a good 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night...it does NOT feel like much, though!  I'm tired.

We were blessed to have my mom and sister (Mimi and Aunt Kim to my girls) take Maya, Gigi, and Olivia to their house for a week after Jorja was born. The girls got to go to Chicago with Aunt Kim and go to the zoo.  They were so excited...mostly because they got to ride on a train and a bus to get to the zoo.  They had a great time.  Mimi and Kim took them to the park, to visit family, to Wendy's (one of the girls' favorite restaurants), and to a candy store.  They got to go to their cousin Addie's birthday party and spend a night with Mamaw and Poppa (Brooks' mom and dad).

Having them gone for a week was...heavenly.  Girls, if you read this someday and are hurt by that...I'm sorry.  But you're a handful right now!  Mimi and Aunt Kim were exhausted when you left!

After I got home from the hospital, I wasn't feeling well.  My head was killing me and I was having a lot of pain.  The pain meds that I was getting in the hospital made me feel great....but I didn't get those when I came home.  Basically, I went from having pain meds every 3-4 hours....to having that dose cut in half and only being able to take it every 6 hours.  So it was a bit rough.  My headache didn't really go away, and I ended up with a spinal headache.  Thankfully, after a few days of resting in bed, the headache went away.  So I didn't have to get a blood patch or whatever they do for spinal headaches.

I was so thankful that I didn't have the older girls home during that time...it would have been horrible.

Since they came home (on Memorial Day), things have been okay around here.  Taking care of all four girls while recovering from a c-section and attempting to breast feed a newborn is not always fun. Let's just say that I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water right now.  There have been a few good days and a few really bad days, but most days are just okay.  I keep telling myself that things will get better.  Soon I will be able to sleep....soon Jorja will be on a schedule...soon I won't have pain...etc.

For now, I'm just trying to take in the beauty of a newborn.  Jorja is probably my last baby, which makes me happy and sad at the same time.  I'm just trying to enjoy it all....her little noises, her smell, her snuggles.  She's such a little one and just so adorable.

We had her check up today...she now weighs in at 7 pounds, 9 ounces.  She gained back what she lost after birth, and then some!  Yay, Jorja!

We were so blessed by our church family after she was born.  They brought us meals for 2 weeks...it was amazing.  I loved not having to worry about dinner, especially once the girls were home.  One night, Debbie even brought us cupcakes!  The girls were thrilled.  Here's Olivia, chowing down on her cupcake.

Here she is saying, "I love cupcakes!"

The girls just adore their baby sister.  They call her "New Baby"...once in a while, they call her by her name, but normally they say things like, "Hi, new baby! I'm your big sister." or "Can I hold my new baby?" or "Where is the new baby?"

I've been proud of how gentle and loving they are with her.

 So that's life right now!  Busy, tired, and so very blessed.