We chose to do an at-home photo shoot ourselves for McKenna’s newborn photos. It was important to me to have nice photos of her as a newborn, but it wasn’t a priority to have them taken professionally. We opted to have my mom take some photos of her now with her DSLR camera, and we’ll invest in family photos when she’s a little older (most likely around Christmas time to use for Christmas cards). These are of a few of the moments we captured when McKenna was about 1 week old.
I’m one month old!
Weight: 9.6 lbs.
Height: 21.75″
Eye Color: Probably blue/gray like Mom’s
I Cry When: I have stinky diaper or am hungry. Even that’s not often. I’m a very happy & chill baby!
I Smile When: I’m passing gas… Which is very often. And loud. The louder the better, I say.
What soothes me the most is: rocking in my rocking chair from Grandpa Dave & Grammy and listening to Aunt Stephanie’s recording of “Here Comes the Sun”
Can’t Leave the House Without: My WubbaNub… Mom needs to buy me another one!
I can’t believe it’s already been one month since McKenna was born. It’s true what they say – time is flying by so quickly!
Within the first week home from the hospital, McKenna perfected her latch (a huge relief to me as she is slightly tongue tied, and it could have affected breastfeeding). I started pumping at the beginning of June, after about 2 1/2 weeks of solid breastfeeding, so that we could begin building up a little supply before I head back to work and also so that Mike could feed her sometimes, too. This growing girl may be taking after her daddy as she sometimes needs to be supplemented even after she’s done nursing. In fact, at just 3 weeks old she downed 6 oz. in one sitting! This isn’t a common occurrence, however we are very thankful we started the freezer supply as early as we did! It’s also thanks to a full belly that McKenna will frequently sleep for 7 consecutive hours – on a bad night (which there are) I’m not as lucky.
In the last month McKenna has had lots of visitors. Our favorite visitor so far (for obvious reasons) is her Aunt (and Godmother) Stephanie, who we are lucky enough to have in town for the summer while she works with St. Pete Opera on West Side Story. Stephanie and I normally get to see each other once a year, maybe twice if we’re lucky, so we are beyond blessed with the timing of this gig so that she can spend time with us and her new niece!
Rigby has adjusted to life with McKenna nicely – no real surprise here as he always has been such a love. He still gets very excited when guests come over as I think he sometimes forgets they’re most likely here to see the baby, not him. You can most often find Rigby lying on the couch with us during nap time or at the floor of McKenna’s Pack-N-Play while I’m trying to get work done. The only thing we really have to worry about is him licking her head or face after Lord knows where his tongue just was. McKenna doesn’t seem to mind one bit, but I am not a fan.
Mike and I are beyond happy about parenthood, and we’ve both settled into it pretty naturally, in my opinion. It is pretty funny to see our parenting differences coming out already. If they continue to progress as they are, they’ll compliment each other nicely, and it will also prove to be pretty entertaining. We are enjoying our time together while I am still off work (5 more weeks) and have lots planned for Miss M!
I didn’t love being pregnant. Don’t get me wrong – the idea of what your body is doing during pregnancy is a beautiful, fascinating miracle, yes, absolutely. But I didn’t love being pregnant. I didn’t hate it either… I was just impartial to it most of the time. On one hand you’re growing this beautiful baby inside you, and you can feel his/her movements and shifts, and it’s incredible. And then on the other hand you’re growing this baby inside you which means you’re growing. Faster than you’ve probably ever grown before. And it’s not vertical growth, it’s lateral growth. Lots and lots of lateral growth. And your body pretty much becomes a thing of its own. You might get gassier, flabbier, and/or unbelievably tired like you just ran a marathon. You’ll probably get crankier or at least moodier (tears fall much more easily with all of the hormones raging inside your body). Once you really start growing you might get stretch marks or hemorrhoids (Woohoo! Thanks, baby!), and if you’re really lucky you’ll get both. Your poop changes, and you pee all the time. You’re never hydrated enough or full enough. You’ll crave things you’ve never liked before, and you’ll hate some of your favorite foods.
So to all those women who told me, “I loved being pregnant!” when I found out I was: Good. For. You. I admire you and applaud you, really. Because honestly, I was blessed with one of the easiest pregnancies ever. I had barely any morning sickness (so little that I attribute each instance to not eating a proper breakfast before taking my prenatal vitamin), no stretch marks, average weight gain (33 lbs.), no swelling, hardly any moodiness until the last month or two, etc. I even wore my regular clothes up until about a month and a half or two before my due date… But I still didn’t love being pregnant.
What I did love about being pregnant was feeling McKenna kick and move. I especially loved the handful of times where she must have been somersaulting or rolling around – my belly was producing wave-like movements. I anticipated her first movement for what felt like forever, savored every movement afterward, and loved feeling her wiggle and kick up until the few hours before she was born. Her moving was the highlight of the entire 10 months of my pregnancy – and thankfully she did it a lot. But other than that, I still didn’t love being pregnant.
But regardless of how I felt during my pregnancy, or how any woman feels during their pregnancy, it’s true what they say – the outcome is entirely worth the wait. There is a miracle behind every hour of every day of every month that you spend growing this little human inside you. Now I have this sweet blessing in the form of a baby girl cooing while she sleeps in front of me, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. So even though I didn’t love being pregnant, I absolutely love being McKenna’s Mommy.
Our Little "Whoops!" 