The first week with Iris

You never know what to expect when you bring a baby home from the hospital. How will life change? Who will have the first meltdown - the 2 year old, the baby, the mom, the 4 year old? Will I sleep? What were we thinking!

Bringing Iris home felt so good. She had been long overdue and I was so ready to show her off to all our new friends in Palatine who have been praying so fervently for our health and safety through this whole process. I had an inkling from the start that she'd be an easy baby so I felt confident that the transition would have its rocky moments but overall would be an easy thing. Iris' first outing was to church on Sunday morning. Nana and Papa were there to take care of June and Ruben so all I had to do is walk into the building (carrying nothing but the diaper bag), sit down in church, and show off our daughter. One hour later I was exhausted and Iris had slept the entire time. Home again, home again jiggety jig. Ahh...time to relax and get to know Iris. The cutest newborn thing she does is her "silent cry." She'll be laying in the bouncer or on the floor and if she needs something she starts crying but no sound comes out of her mouth. Her face is all scrunched up and her body is writhing but no sound. Usually someone notices that she's "crying" before she gets to the stage where a scream might pop out. I'm sure she'll grow out of it, but for now, silent crying is the best newborn invention ever. Communication without the hearing loss. Nana and Papa have been a huge help this last week but by Monday it is time for them to leave. Nana left frozen burritos in the freezer, a fridge full of fruits and veggies, and extra presents for June and Ruben when we feel like Iris is too much the center of attention. Papa converted Ruben's closet into an awesome fort by taking down the hanger bar and shelves and adding a ladder up to this really cool kid space. We'll just have to decorate it eventually.

Tuesday morning I had planned to take fairly easy at home, but the kids were definitely cabin feverish and I figured I'd waste just as much energy trying to entertain them at home as I would if we got out of the house. So we went to the library story time. The kids really enjoyed it (we sang five little monkeys jumping on the bed - how could it be bad) and we even got our new library cards before we left so we could check out some new books and movies. It was just after 11 so kids are getting hungry, I'm getting hungry and I realize that with the new books in the diaper bag, Iris in her carseat, and Ruben pulling at my hand, it is going to be a terribly long walk out to the car. By the time we get there, I'm shaky, the kids are still hungry, and Iris is still sleeping (thank the Lord!). I pull out granola bars to tide us all over and drive home where I manage to walk upstairs and turn on a Dora movie before I collapse on the couch. I lay there until Karl comes home for lunch. He feeds the kids and himself and gets me some food as well while I lay on the couch in pain. My back hurts, I'm engorged to the hilt, I'm pretty sure my blood pressure is too high and I have a headache. Pretty much the worst I've felt in a while. Why did we go to the library again? I put in another movie after Karl goes back to work and curl up to sleep. Thankfully, Karl's able to come home early from work before an evening meeting so I have some time to collect myself, medicate myself, and empty myself of excess milk before dinner. Wednesday will be better, I tell myself even though by 8 that evening I'm feeling pretty cruddy again. Did I mention that Iris has been perfect this whole time. She eats and sleeps. Whew.

Wednesday is a fantastic day and thankfully so because Thursday does not start out well. Iris has been sleeping really well at night with only one meal around 2 or 3. Wednesday night she went to sleep around 10:30 and at 4 I realize that Karl is tromping around downstairs and that Iris is still sleeping. I wake her up and feed her because I need her to eat, and Karl comes in to tell me that there is standing water in the garage because it has been raining nonstop for the last 6 hours. By 5 am, we're both downstairs with a shopvac and bucket trying to figure where to put all this water before it overflows into our finished basement (new carpet even). By 5:30 our next door neighbor Steve has his shopvac in our basement as well and we're furiously trying to manage the influx of water. Kids start waking up so I once again stick them in front of a show in our bedroom (best morning ever, in Ruben's estimation) and when I come out I see at least three different neighbors in our front yard conferring with Karl and Steve. Next thing I know one of them is back with a submersible pump and 20 ft of pvc pipe. Just in the nic of time (water is now level with the step up into our house - I'm avoiding the basement because I assume it will be flooded next time I walk down the steps), the pump makes some headway and after an hour of pumping there's only an inch or two of water left in the garage and after 2 hours we're nearly dry. Karl's able to get the sump pump working again (on the list of things to buy, new sump pump), and even though the rain continues to fall, we're safe. The sewer line is full so we have a little bit of seepage from our utility room but by evening that has resolved as well. I would like to take this moment to say a huge prayer of thanks for neighbors who were so willing to sit out in the rain at 5:30 in the morning to help these people they've never met before save their basement carpeting.  Thank you, Lord!

Friday is a normal day with Mom's PEACE group in the morning (I let Ruben and June wear sandals, and on the way there it started snowing), movie and nap in the afternoon and we got our first delivered dinner that night. Amazing! As we go to sleep at the end of our first week with Iris, Karl notes that it's snowing and sure enough, we wake up to a nice coating of snow. What a week.

I'm laying out these details because it's amazing to note that the largest struggles we had this week were not in any way related to Iris or even to June or Ruben's adjusting to her. June continues to love to hold Iris and takes particular pleasure in helping get her dressed which includes picking out the clothes which should always include a hat to match. Ruben loves to talk to "baby Iris" and really hasn't put her life in danger as of yet. Iris herself continues to give me plenty of sleep at night, nurses well, poops semi-regularly, and only cries when you change her diaper with cold hands (and then she'll tell you how disappointed she is in you!)  Iris seems to know that our emotional strength was sapped in the nine days after her due date and has atoned for her behavior then with her perfect nature now. The last 3 months have been a series of life transitions, any one of which could throw a family into turmoil. Yet, the Fays have managed to weather the storm and I'm sure it is in large part due to the amazing number of people who pray for us on a daily basis. We truly appreciate these prayers and know that God has listened. While we've traversed these transitions well enough, we're ready to settle down to a normal routine. We're ready if God has yet another challenge in mind, but for the foreseeable future we've got our feet on the ground.