Welcome to Parenthood

Well, it's official now - we are parents! Sara Katherine Athon was born on January 20th at 12:54pm after a long and painful 12 1/2 hour labor that mom somehow did without pain medication like she wanted. Sara weighed 7lbs 8oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She had some trouble breathing at first and was taken to the NICU at Texas Children's Hospital for treatment. It turned out that she just had some left over fluid in her lungs that she hadn't gotten rid of, which was the best case scenario because it meant there was no infection or other more serious problem to worry about. After three days we were able to bring her home and begin life as a new family.

Seeing as it's taken me just over three weeks to even have a moment to add something to our website, parenting a newborn has taken over our entire lives. I finally have a few minutes where she is actually sleeping in her swing, so I thought I would try to write some words about life so far and what Sara has been up to. We will try to update our website with news and fun things that Sara is doing often, but please be patient with us as life is still very chaotic and some days are spent entirely trying to settle her down when she's crying. We often don't have time to do much more than take care of her and breathe so no complaints when it takes a long time to get a new post!

After leaving the hospital, Andy was home for the first two weeks with us (and that was fantastic!). He was able to help take care of me and Sara as we recovered from our hospital stays and really spend some time with us. He's now back at work for his second week and that is very tiring for all of us. He has to get up early on little sleep to go to work and I am home alone with Sara all day which is a lot of work too!

We have spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to keep Sara happy and I spent lots of time with Sara establishing nursing. Luckily all the pumping I had done in the hospital when she wasn't allowed to nurse worked well and my milk came in right on time at about day 3. Sara was able to pick up nursing well despite not being able to start right after birth which was a huge relief for me as I want her to be an exclusively breastfed baby and didn't want to have to give her formula at all.

We are now starting to settle into a bit of a routine with eating and sleeping, but Sara is still too little to be on any exact schedule. She eats every 2-3 hours during the day and goes 3-4 hours at night before waking up hungry. She does have day and night straightened out and sleeps for 3-4 hour increments starting about 10pm most nights until morning comes. Unfortunately, she really hates to sleep by herself and will only go down in her bassinet when she is extrememly tired at night. We've been having to start her off at night sleeping on one of us either in bed or on the couch and then try to put her down in her own bed after the next feeding. We're lucky if she'll do two full sleep cycles in her own bed, but that doesn't happen most nights. We keep trying to put her down on her own in hopes that she will get used to it, but she's still not having any of it and we pick her up anytime she gets upset since she is too little to let her cry.

Sara had several sponge baths while her cord was still attached and luckily seems to like the water unlike most newborns. She finally lost her cord at almost three weeks and had her first real bath yesterday in the tub. She also seemed to like being in the water and was very calm for the whole bath. Hopefully that will continue and bathtime will be fun for her. It will be neat when she is old enough to enjoy splashing and playing with toys in the bath.

Sara is awake when not eating about 2-3 times throughout the day for about an hour or so. There isn't a whole lot to do with her right now since she is so little but we make faces and hold toys in front of her to look at. We have play time on the floor where we help her touch toys of different colors and textures and she also does some tummy time on the floor each day to help her develop her neck muscles. She can already hold her head up really well for about a minute at a time and can look around on her own briefly too. This past weekend we bought a play mat that has toys hanging down for her to focus on. She will eventually be big enough to reach the toys and they can be pulled down easily to play with.

Sara had her first family visitors this past weekend when her Grandaddy and TruTru came for a few days to see her. They were able to hold her and play with her and we're pretty sure that Sara had a good time :)




Sara also had her first real outting since coming home from the hospital this past weekend where we went to Target and out to eat. She did really well and likes to sleep in the carseat as long as the car is moving. I brought along a pillow and was able to nurse her in the car in between stops and that kept her happy for the duration. It was nice to be able to leave the house for a while and get out into the world since we've pretty much been staying home and inside except for daily walks around the neighborhood. It will be good to start going more places as she gets older and get out of the house more often!


Well that is a good highlight summary of life so far with Sara at home. We are two very tired parents and some days are better than others but Sara is doing well and we are looking forward to all the new things she will start doing soon as she gets more interactive with us.


Lots of Love,
Andy, Valarie, and Sara