A New Age, Anna's 1st Month

Lest you think this blog url has been hijacked by some random woman with a baby...

 Check it out!  We had a baby!

A month ago!

Maybe at some point I'll get around to doing Anna's birth story, but for now I'm just going to introduce her royal cuteness.

*A couple disclaimers:
1. Anna was born June 17, so she's well over a month old now.  These photos were really more practice for me than true one-month-old photos.  Two photo sessions later, and I'm still not super happy with them.
2.  You'll see here two different photo sessions of mine...in the skirted bodysuit (dark pink), she's 1 month and 1 week old.  In the black pants (and light pink top), she's 1 month and 2 weeks old.  The better quality, fabulous photos (see below) are a gift from my sister Kimie and are true 1 month photos, and I couldn't possibly improve on them, anyway!  Thanks, Kimie!

(From Kimie)

This first month has been challenging, of course, but not because of the sleep deprivation (at least not for me).  Who knew breastfeeding could be SO difficult?  I mean.  It felt like hornets.  Every time.  A whole hive of them.  Every.  Time.

It doesn't anymore, thank God.  But really.  How did we survive as a species for this long if our Mother's Milk process was this awful at the beginning?  Can you imagine if cows?  The whole dairy industry simply wouldn't exist, not to mention the beef and pork industries.  Chickens, though...chickens would make it, I guess.

Little stinker.  The responsive smiling actually belongs in the two-month post...she really just started doing that this week.

 Still not quite in command of her head yet.

But look at this head lift!  She had an impressive head lift even back at two weeks old.

At one month (which, again, was two weeks ago), Anna was making pretty good eye contact.  She was trying, but not usually succeeding, to suck on her fists.  She can't really hold onto a pacifier yet, so we usually give her a finger to calm her down.

Three weeks old.

Over the course of the month, she slowly lost more and more of the dark hair she was born with.

And by the end of the month, she was becoming a real champ at breastfeeding.

Thanks to one lactation consultant, one breastfeeding doctor, a roomful of mommies, my midwife, my other midwife, my doula, my own mommy, my sister Kimie, the whole internet, and a stack of books.

And the undying, unendingly patient man who I am blessed to call husband and who is lucky enough to be this angel's daddy.

Happy one-month, Anna!