I guess I should actually share our sweet girl's arrival, only a month late at this point! 😂 She's our little rainbow baby after two first trimester miscarriages, one in August 2018 and one in February 2019. 🌈

One day old and already bringing so much love and joy to her family!

After 27 hours of labor (from consistent contractions to delivery) we finally met our little girl at 5:23 pm! I had stalled out at 8 cm for 3 hours, so we opted for having my waters broken and then I used gas and air up until transition, and maybe a bit during pushing; otherwise, we had the intervention and medication free birth experience we had planned for at our Southern California in-hospital birth center. We had prepared with Bradley Method classes and my husband was an absolutely amazing coach, I was also so thankful to have had my mum there as a secondary support person and she was able to capture the above photo right after I delivered Anna on a birthing stool with my hubby's support and she was handed to me by our attending midwife.

We checked out of the birth center after only 24 hours and were faced with a jaundice scare in our little girl's first week of life. Through formula supplementation and pumping we were able to avoid hospitalization for phototherapy, and by her one week milestone I was able to get her back to beeing exclusively breastfed through a combination of scheduled feedings and supplementation with my pumped breastmilk. Our families were absolutely amazing during this time of bottle-feeding, and both my mum and my mother-in-law took turns sleeping over to help with our crazy nighttime schedules and sleep deprivation.

Because Anna bounced back to her birthweight by her two week milestone, we got the go-ahead to move from scheduled feeding to nursing on demand. It was so nice to feel like we were transitioning to how I expected life to look with a newborn and to reduce pumping sessions down to just once a day in the morning to build up a freezer stash just as a personal choice than as a necessity.

Nursing on demand has been going so well and little Anna gained more weight than was expected, which was such a huge relief and reassurance! We also started cloth diapering and it's been going well since- our newborn stash is mostly all-in-ones for daytime use, with covers and fitteds our preferred nighttime method.

Our sweetheart hit her one month milestone this weekend and has grown enough to start fitting her 0-3 month clothes! She's gained so much strength and already changed from that little newborn we brought home. She loves high contrast images and storytime, tummy time is going well, and snuggles are her favorite- there's no place she'd rather sleep than on someone's chest.

Enjoying high contrast pictures during cloth diaper changes.

Story time with my younger sister, Anna's "Aunty Jessie"! ♡

Snuggles with Mommy & Daddy!

As the first grandchild on both sides of her family, there is no shortage of love and cuddles for our little girl!