5 Days Later

I'm still recovering but it's going well. I'm more in love with this little munchkin everyday! We've been going for short family walks and I've made it a priority to take a long nap every afternoon. 

I feel closer to normal every day, I've lost 14 pounds and there's 14 left to lose, but that is ok. I'm still wearing my maternity clothes:

I miss being pregnant a little, mostly just wishing I could have known then how adorable Keira would be, it still amazes me that I made her and she lived inside of me for 9 months. Today was her due date, she was technically 5 days early but in my book, she came exactly on time :-)

Cute Baby Pics

Having Keira is 10,000 times better than I  imagined, she is this sweet little thing who just loves us because she doesn't know anything else so we just love her a million times back.

No rhyme or reason - just cute pictures of Keira:

Keira Cecelia

As you all know, we struggled with picking a name for baby G. We knew we wanted to use Cecelia as her middle name but the first name took a while... Well actually I decided when her head was about 2/3 of the way delivered and she was about to be born. 

Cecelia is Mike's paternal grandmothers first name. She went by her middle name, Barbara, but we checked and this was only because there were other women in her family with the name Cecelia. We tried to quiz her casually so she wouldn't know what was up. This was months and months ago and we managed to keep it just between the two of us. We love that the name is in the family and we can honor Keira's "GG" (great grandma).

               Keira & GG (Cecelia)

For baby's first name we made lists and lists, and read several baby name books over to cover. The only name to show up on our list twice was Keira. So Mike took to researching the Internet to find out how girls named Keira liked their names. Everyone with that name was happy with it and glad they didn't have a more common name (we had considered some names that are very popular right now). We read more about what Keira means and found out it was an Irish name. Perfect- we are both descendants of Ireland.

We are so happy with her name and when she popped out with a head full of dark brown hair we knew it was the perfect name for her!

 Keira- Pronounced "keer-ah"

The feminine form of Ciaran, from the Irish ciar meaning “dark” and implies “dark hair and brown eyes.” St. Ciara was a distinguished seventh-century figure who established a monastery at Kilkeary in County Tipperary. It was the fourth most popular baby girl name in Ireland in 2003.

Put Your Hands Up!

We had our first visit to the pediatrician yesterday and she was reading through all the records from the birth... "Oh so baby came out with a hand presenting?"

Say what?! Hmmm I do recall someone saying something about a hand but I was a little medicated and distracted at the time. 

Turns out not only was baby 8lb 7 (an a half!)oz - lets call it 8.5 pounds - she also came out with a hand next to her face- and I only pushed this button once!

She still loves keeping her hands up my her face, her arms and hands are waving around like crazy when she's not swaddled, Mike says she looks like a little  lobster (next years Halloween costume- check!) :-)

Baby's First Walk

My goal was to try to take a walk with baby everyday, no matter how short. We started yesterday on our first full day at home. We all went together and just walked a few blocks (Mike is still in his boot). Keira was hungry and crying a little bit but as soon as we got outside she passed out. 

The carrier is so comfortable and we just loved being in there. When we got home I kept her in there while I straightened up a little bit.

Baby Playlist

I had my heart set on listening to music during my labor and delivery. We packed our mini iPhone speaker and I planned to carefully create a playlist...

Well I ended up making this playlist as I was waiting for my epidural. The music got me through that hour and a half of waiting through the contractions and the nurses loved the music while I was pushing. 

We can't remember which song played exactly as Keira was born but these songs will all have a special place in our hearts as we can recall listening to most of them during labor, especially Man in the Mirror, one of MJs most beautiful songs.