A New Chapter

Today is an odd day for me.  It's the first day of school and, for the first time in fourteen years, I'm not there.  I thought perhaps it would be difficult but I can honestly say it's not.  That just makes me more concerned for what it will be like to leave Baby A when I do return to work.

So, what's been going on these days?

Baby A is 8 1/2 weeks old.  She's turning more and more into an infant and not a newborn.  She's incredibly strong physically and extremely strong-willed mentally.  We have a running debate if she's stubborn like her daddy or mommy.  :)  She's smiling regularly and making tons of sounds, too.

We've had two overnights!   She spent the night with us at Grammy and Pop-Pop's (my parents) and also overnight at camp.  Both trips went very well!

She's sleeping longer.  The last four nights she's slept at least seven hours straight!

Mr SC has been home with us for a month now.  He hurt his elbow at work before the baby was born and reaggravated it when he returned.  I hate that he's in pain but him being home couldn't have happened at a better time.  We take turns being "on duty" with her and it's really been working out well.

The last few days, we've been able to put her down when she's napping.  Before that, you pretty much had to hold her all the time or she screamed.  I love holding my daughter more than anything, but it's tough to have to hold her 24 hours a day.  She loves her swing now, too.  

A friend of the family is going to watch her when I return to work in December.  She watches children from time to time for friends and Baby A will be the only one with her.  She lives about two minutes from our house and it's about 10 minutes from work for both of us. There is no way financially that we can afford for me to stay home longer but I know when the time comes, knowing Baby A will be with her will make it a little easier.

For those of you who are still reading, I thought I'd leave you with some of my favorite pics.  :)

Support...

My heart is breaking for a fellow blogger.   If you could, stop on by Jo's blog at
 http://jo-mojoworking.blogspot.com/.  She just found out that she had a chemical pregnancy after IVF.  It is her fourth loss.

She's been an incredible source of support to me and so many of us...I'm hoping that in some small way, this helps.

Finality

Today I started packing up my maternity clothes to take them to a consignment shop. As bizarre as this may sound, I liked my maternity wardrobe much better than my regular wardrobe.  How can that be?  I wasn't worried about being fat, I was simply concerned about looking the best that I could.  Guess I have some shopping to do in the near future.

Although Mr SC and I already decided on birth control (and he's likely having a vasectomy in the next few months), packing up the clothes makes me sad.  We are both so incredibly thankful for Baby A but yet it still makes us sad that the decision about not trying again has pretty much been made for us.  We can't go through TTC and the fear of miscarrying again.  We both know this deep in our hearts.  Still, it tore me apart to hear Mr SC admit that he wishes that we could have "a houseful of kids running around".  I hate that I can't give that to  him.

I know this decision is what's best for us and our family.  My head knows that.  My heart just can't help but be a little sad today.