One Month

Weight: 6 lbs 6 oz

Length: 19.3 in

Head Circumference: 36.0 cm

Has it seriously already been a month since I got to meet my precious little girl? Time is flying way too fast.

This first month has been full of ups and downs. Transitioning into parenthood hasn't been hard, but it hasn't been the easiest thing I've ever done either.

Once we finally got to bring Penny home, we were up every two hours to feed her. We had to stick to that schedule pretty tightly since she was such a tiny baby. She's now eating anywhere between 3-4 ounces every 3-4 hours (longer at night). We typically let her wake us up to eat at night. We've been going to the doctor weekly for weight checks just to make sure she was eating well and gaining weight adequately. She finally got to be taken off the preemie formula last week and has started wearing some of her newborn clothes. Her pediatrician says she looks "absolutely perfect," she's just tiny, but is catching up quickly.

She is a great sleeper, most of the time. She'll wake up to eat and have her diaper changed. After she gets all cleaned up, one of us will hold her until she falls back asleep and then she's out until the next feeding. We have had to start using a pacifier occasionally to help her calm down & relax. She's awesome at putting herself to sleep and soothing herself back to sleep when she wakes up. We'll put her in the cradle when she's slightly drowsy to help encourage her to go to sleep on her own and typically within 5, maybe 10, minutes she is sound asleep.

Penny's One Month "Firsts"

Leaving the hospital & heading straight to the 930

First MC Family Dinner

First Bath

First Trip to the Park

First Pool Party (in newborn clothes!)

Penny is an absolute sweetheart. She's finally started smiling at us. It is seriously the most precious thing in the world. As different and difficult as this first month has been I wouldn't trade this life for any other one. She has made our lives richer in so many ways. I'm pretty excited to see where she is a month from now, the advances she's made and the things that we've done.

Penelope Claire

Surprise!!

I feel like my husband should be telling our birth story, because I don't remember any of it. 

Penelope Claire Collier was born June 15, 2013 via emergency C-section. James says he knew the moment he needed to take me to the emergency room...I came walking down the hall and told him I couldn't see and asked him to turn the lights on...Every light in the house was on.

When I came in, they diagnosed me with preeclampsia, toxemia, high blood pressure (I think James has said it was something like 200/130...NOT GOOD!) and HELLP syndrome (which stands for: Hemolysis, Elevated Liver Enzymes, Low Platelet Count). Because of the high blood pressure my brain had started seizing & the low platelet count meant they had to give me a transfusion of platelets. I lost my sight for about a day and a half, if not longer. The seizures are probably what lead to a lot of the memory loss I experience about the entire ordeal. The only way to "cure" any of these is to get the baby out as fast as possible.

My family says that I literally "went crazy." My OB had to call for restraints for my bed because I would not lay still and I was ripping IVs out of my arms. I guess after so long of not co-operating and being so out of it, he pumped me full of valium and got Penny out of there. They say that Jen post C-section was the funniest thing they had ever seen, as scary as everything was. James asked me if I knew what had happened. He says my response was, "I don't pregnant anymore." I was on a pretty rough morphine drip, what can I say.

Bonding with Dad

In all of the craziness of trying to save both Penny and I, my husband was able to get our entire family to the hospital. It wasn't until days after that I found out just how many people had sat in the waiting room and prayed for us. I'm so glad that they were there for James; to provide some stability and support in a extremely scary and trying time.

Not even a day old and Robbles is already photo bombing.

Dad & Penny

Cuddles with Luke

My earliest memories of life with Penny are of that Sunday night (June 16). Two of my pastors came in to pray with me. That was probably around 8 or 9 pm. When the nurses brought Penny into the room, nothing about it felt weird. You would think with me having no memory of anything that happened, bringing her into the room would spawn some sort of response, but it always felt natural having her there with us. 

I am in love with these big eyes!

My vision, thankfully, has returned to normal. My blood pressure, which was monitored by my OB for about 3 weeks, has returned to normal. If you saw me on the street today and knew nothing about my pregnancy, you would never be able to tell that anything was wrong. 

Penny's "extra thumb."
The doctors tied it off and it fell off a few days later.

Penny and I are both very lucky to be here today. God definitely had his hand on us that day. I can't wait to see where life takes this precious girl.