We had a good first night in the hospital - we both even got to sleep a little bit. We had to wake the baby to feed her even. The longest the hospital will let them go at night is 4 hours between feeds. Overnight we began the big debate over the name selection and didn't really get anywhere. John preferred one name, I preferred the other. We finally decided we needed to sleep more than we needed a name for the baby and agreed to revisit the problem in the morning.
We had a busy morning. The baby had her hearing screening done, had another visit from the pediatrician, a visit with the OB and had her pictures taken all before lunch (I'll post the hospital pictures separately because there are a lot of them)! We also had a visit from the cutest big brother and his Grandma! The hardest part about being in the hospital was being away from William. Up until the baby was born, the longest I was ever away from him was roughly 7 hours. Even though I was overjoyed about our newest bundle of joy, I was fiercely missing me some big boy.
William and Grandma coming up for their visit - William is carrying his present for the baby. How cute is our boy?
William giving the baby "pats". He was surprisingly gentle with her - I was so relieved!
Still calling her his "baby brother", he also says "cute!" when he's looking at her!
Helping Mama hold the baby and looking at her little hands/fingers.
A favorite activity: playing cars with Daddy on the windowsill and watching the cars drive by the hospital
Hmm...turns out when babies cry, they are LOUD! So funny that he did this on his own!
After the big boy left and every one else quieted down, John and I tackled the name problem again. In the end, we put the two top names on pieces of paper and put them into a hat. Same story as what we did when William was born and we were trying to name him. The name that came out of the hat: Amelia. And so she was named.
For the record, this was not the name I had already given her in my head during our special moment the day before. However, John did not really like my name very well...and in the end he was right about her being a girl...and the paperwork was filled out and turned in...so the name stayed. But, I will tell you that I struggled mightily with the name for the first week or so. I'm guessing largely due to hormones, because Amelia was one of our top names and a name I really like. But, I was having a hard time telling people her name without feeling like throwing up and I cried about it almost every day. I didn't want to blog about it because I didn't want to write her name. It just didn't feel like her name. We talked about it quite a bit and even made some phone calls to different offices and looked into officially changing her name. And then we didn't. For a lot of reasons that are probably also hormone related and not very interesting. In the end, I wanted to give you a heads up about my feelings about her name, especially if you are planning on talking about it with me in person. If you're looking for me to be all...warm and fuzzy about it, I'm not. I love her name and we're keeping it.
I've rewritten the last few sentences 100 times now and they still sound crabby. I don't really feel crabby about it anymore - you'll just have to take my word for it.
PS And no, I won't tell you the other name.
Big Brother William was waiting for us outside and riding his bike when we drove up. Here he is peeking into the car as his baby sister.
The proud daddy getting ready to take his baby girl out of the car.
Finally home!
Family of four in front of our house
Bringing her inside through the other door - the front door was locked. William is being a "helper" by carrying the baby seat with daddy.
Look, the baby brought another present for the big brother!
Daddy and his baby girl
The big brother reading a book to his baby. What a great helper we have!
