So this pregnancy was, shall we set, not the most picture perfect, rosy, look a me aren’t I cute pregnancy that ever was. From the word go I was bloated, sick, uncomfortable, hungry, starving, ravenous, sick to my stomach, swollen legs, swollen feet, did I mention uncomfortable, that I have ever been in my life. To sum things up, one month before I delivered I had to buy Birkenstocks because it was the only thing I could get my fat feet into and I was tired of hearing the comments from colleagues about my flip flops in November. To really sum it up, I knew I was having a girl from day 1.

I was also an emotional wreck…ask Jay. I manage to hold things together for work, took some time to visit my grandparents, and even saw a shrink. I was terrified about what postpartum would feel like. Towards the latter bit of the pregnancy, that part got much easier and I was not a constant stream of water works.

With my first pregnancy, I was happy, perky, and cute (I think). People knew I was pregnant and loved to touch the belly.

In this pregnancy, I had someone tell me when I was 37 weeks along that I did not look pregnant. How is that nice? If I don’t look pregnant, then I am just HUGE?!?!?

In my first pregnancy, I gained 9 pounds. NINE POUNDS!

In this pregnancy, I gained…are you ready?…43 pounds. FORTY-THREE POUNDS!!!

And it is not like I am Tori Spelling where her OB explains the weight gain away by saying she was so tiny to start with, she needed to gain the weight. Um, no.

Today, on Day 12 after the baby, I am thrilled to report that my ankles almost look normal, my feet can fit into my larger, somewhat cute shoes (not the Birks), and I have lost…are you ready?…33 pounds. THIRTY THREE POUNDS! In twelve days!

My OB told me that I was carrying a ton of water weight and baby, so I should not be hugely surprised but it is awesome to see that scale every morning. Watch, tomorrow it will go up.

My milk is still not coming in but we are working on that. I am taking Reglen and Mother’s Milk (FenuGreek) to combat it. We shall see.

Mara celebrated her first week with us on Thursday, December 11, 2008.

She is getting cuter everyday and is, all in all, a very easy going baby. She seems to still have her days and nights confused and the first two hours of sleep, generally from midnight to 2 am are always especially hard. Not sure if it is the day/night mixup or she just does not like her bassinet.

During the day, she is very alert (when awake) and very strong, she is constantly trying to hold her head up. I don’t remember Thane being that strong this early. She also keeps her arms and legs close to her and fights when we try to pry them from her little body when we change her.

She is still fitting in newborn clothes, of which we have precious few, so we cycle through them several times. We are much more plentiful once we hit 0-3 months.

Big brother Thane is still enthralled with our newest addition. He loves to look in the Pack N Play and wave at her.

Just to set the record straight, that perfect line was a direct quote from another Mom at Thane’s school. I was in no way implying that we were or thought we were perfect. But apparently someone up above wanted us to feel the pressure of two children even more than we were.

We dropped Thane off at school on Thursday morning and arrived home at 9 am, trying to get settled for the day. At 9:40, we got a call. Thane had a fever of 100.8 and a runny nose and needed to go home. Now that is perfection because what I had just been thinking was, you know what would make this better, is having a sick toddler and a newborn at home together, try to keep the toddler away from the newborn so she does not get sick but make sure not to make the toddler feel like you are reprimanding him around his new baby sister. That sounds like a hoot! It took Jay two hours to get home because of an accident on 65 and a stop to get a humidifier.

That night it snowed, pretty remarkably for Nashville. Even our 8 year old neighbor next door commented, “I have not seen this much snow in years.”

We tried to get an unhappy boy outside to enjoy it for a little bit but despite daddy’s excitement, he was having none of it. As you can tell by the pictures.

Yesterday (day 2) we realized that he was not sick but teething. He has some wicked incisors peeking through…I would be miserable too.

Mara also received her first Christmas present that day. It was so gorgeously wrapped, I had to post it.