It feels like a thousand years have gone by...

Last Monday marks 6 months that Jessica has been in out lives.
Its hard ato even remember a time without her, a time when i could drink or eat as much or what i liked, a time when i could sleep in to whatever time i liked, could pretty much please myself. However this also means 6 months since i have been waking up to the most heartwarming smiles and cuddles i could ever imagine. 6 months since i actually understand "the baby smell" 6 months since i met the love of my life.

I have been promising myself every day that i will start documenting her life, hopefully this will motivate me, as so many things have passed that i hope to never forget.
I regret not writing things down when we first got to bring her home, my memories of her first weeks is such a faint blur of nappies, feeds, crying and little sleep. I know there were lots of laughing at the funny antics of a newborn baby, that really is a magical time, as you get to know your baby. Who would have thought that such a tiny being could have so many funny facial expressions, or that when she first poked her tongue out at us it would feel like she had learnt to walk at 3 weeks.

I will start with some things that i do remember...

The drive home from the hospital was very exciting for us, it was really quite funny thinking back, here is Jon and I with this tiny little alien trying to put her in her capsule, we were flat out knowing how to hold her let alone strap her in. The hospitals policy was that they could not come out and help us in case of and accident we could hold them liable. Well were were just so clever that we had to beg one of the midwives to just "have a little look" to make sure we had her in right. She informed us that yes we did have her in right, just needed to tighten her a little. Yippee we were on our way to doing something right.

The drive home was very very slow, it reminded me of the end of the movie "knocked up" where Ben Stone, the main character drives home so slow with the new baby. Yes this was us. We did eventually make it home safe and sound with nothing more than a slight peep out of the little one.

Most of her sleeps were spent in the lounge room with us during the day and in our bedroom at night, she would sleep for 3 -4 hours at a time, I laugh thinking back now at the worry we went through on whether or not to wake her. She used to sleep so soundly in the lounge room regardless of the racket that was going on around her. We stopped this when we had a home visit from the baby nurse who advised us against it. Unfortunately we went with her advice. I wish someone had given me the advice to just do what feels right, nothing you do is wrong, you are best to follow your instincts and do what is right for you and your baby. we now have a baby that will ONLY sleep in her cot, or in the car, and occasionally in the pram. I miss being able to hold her and watch her while she sleeps, it was so beautiful to watch. And the best part? She used to smile in her sleep, it was so so funny.

We went on lots of walks in those first few weeks, it was so much fun for me being able to get out of the house and not be weighed down by my stomach. In hind sight i should not have done this as it did add to my recovery time. although i did lose a LOT of weight in the first 12 weeks, which added to me feeling really good and energetic.(unfortunately put it all back on and more now arghhhh)

Her first real smile was when she was 3 weeks old. I didnt beleive it at first and just put it down to "wind" but it became more and more obvious over a few days that it was quite deliberate. It definately made us feel very warm and fuzzy, I am not sure exactly when she started laughing but probably around 4 months, it really was the best feeling in the world. I was laying down with her making noises at her, at first i thought she was doing a little cry, after a few times it was also quite clear it was a laugh. They were very rare for a month or so, and you would have to work quite hard to get them, but it was worth every second even for a tiny giggle.

Its so hard trying the think back to what she used to be like, even a few weeks is hard. Every day i wake up and she is doing something new, its hard to rememeber back to when she wasn't able to do it. Earlier today i was looking in the shed for something and came across the box i had put all the newborn nappies we had left over and all the 0000 clothes we had. I had to get one out just to look at to remind myself how little she really was. It is like a little doll outfit. My baby was never that small trust me!