Visitor Overload

Our sweet Noah is home and we are so happy to have him here. I just can't get over how much I love him. I swear every time I look at him more love for him fills my soul. I love watching Sean with him too. He is just such a proud daddy. He has the most sweet and silly conversations with him. Sean and I are loving getting to know Noah more and seeing his personality come out. Everyone says that Noah just looks like his daddy and doesn't really look like me. Jessica made me feel much better when she pointed out that Noah does actually have my chin and could possibly have my eyes. Life at home has been full of an array of feelings and emotions. Mostly happiness and love but mixed in there occasionally there has been frustration, sleepiness, overwhelmed, and scared. 

When we first got home from the hospital we just enjoyed staring at Noah and telling him about fun things we will do with him and letting him know how much we love him. We ate dinner and then put Noah down for a nap. Then the "baby blues" set in for the first time. Many women, after having a baby, experience the baby blues. This is a biochemical reaction to giving birth. The high levels of hormones that were there  during pregnancy are now crashing back to normal levels, and then screwing with your emotions. Symptoms are: feeling teary, anxious or upset, overwhelmed. The discharge nurse told me it would set in about the 3rd or 4th day after delivery and can last for 10 to 14 days. If it exceeds that then I would need to call my doctor because that would mean it was actually postpartum depression not the normal baby blues. Postpartum depression is a severe, long-lasting form of depression. I know that I don't have postpartum depression because I'm not mad and I don't have any bad feelings of hurting myself or my baby. I just get anxious or overwhelmed occasionally. I think its most due to the surroundings not necessarily the hormones. So now that you know what baby blues are. When we got home and we put Noah to sleep I just looked around the living room and started to cry. I was overwhelmed by how cluttered things are and also a little scared at the idea of taking care of a newborn. Sean said he was a little scared too and that it is normal. He held me and stroked my face and I felt better after a couple minutes.

We are currently sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the living room with Noah in the dinning room in a bassinet due to the nursery still not being done. Good news is that the restoration people are coming tomorrow to get it done then Jessica is coming over Tuesday to help us get the room all in order. We were going to try to put the bassinet in our bedroom but there just isn't any room for it in there. I didn't like the idea of having Noah out in the dinning room or living room and us all the way in the back of the house, so the hide-a-bed is the best second option. I cleaned the day after being home and I felt better about the clutter. Everything is still in the living room until Tuesday but at least its all organized into one corner now.

Then the next issue that caused some stress and frustration occurred last night. We have had so many visitors come see Noah since he was born that we think it stressed his poor little body out and it messed up his sleep schedule. He was sleeping through the night with just an hour interruption every 3 hours for feeding and this made it nice for Sean and I to get good sleep. Then last night this was all thrown out of wack. The past two days of being home Sean and I haven't had more than an hour or so alone with Noah. Friends and family have been here constantly to meet him and get to know him. We are so happy that Noah is loved by so many and we want them to meet him but also we need our time to bond with our baby. We realized last night after not getting any sleep, that it was a must to cut off visitors for a couple days so that we can all get rest including Noah. We felt so bad for him. We knew he was tired and wanting to sleep but he was just so over stimulated and couldn't get to sleep. He just wanted to be held all night. Also he kept wanting to eat every hour to an hour and half. Sean and I got so frustrated, not at all at Noah, just at ourselves for letting him get so overwhelmed and stressed that he couldn't sleep. We felt like we had failed our sweet Noah. It was due to the sleep deprivation that we were so upset. We said a prayer and Sean gave me a blessing so I could be comforted. We then talked about how we will make it a priority to have alone time with Noah and also that we will only allow one or two visitors a day for awhile so we don't have this happen again. Also we decided that the next day, today, we would not have anyone over at all so we can all recover. So far so good. Noah started calming down early this morning about 4am he finally dozed off and so did Sean and I. Then he stayed asleep for 3 hours straight and woke up for his breakfast. All day he has been sleeping in between each feeding and has been awake for some of it as well to play. He is so small so by play I mean, stare at us and watch us talk to him while we watch him make silly faces and look adorable. It has been a really relaxing day for all of us. Sean says that even though last night was really tough that he feels like it brought him and I closer and that Heavenly Father will give us the help we need to be good parents. I just love being a mommy :) Its the best thing I could ever do.

Now for some cute pictures of Noah baby <3

 I was talking to him when he turns his head up and sucks on my nose. haha The little guy was apparently hungry.

 After a full tummy, he dosed right off

Sleepy time

Noah peed on Daddy haha

 Daddy and Noah having a deep philosophical conversation

Mommy and Daddy admiring how very cute our little Noah is. 

I'm so excited for the guys to come over and do the nursery tomorrow though and finally have Noah's nursery done again! Also coming up is Noah's first doctor's appointment this Tuesday morning.