MARLEE IS BORN!! 


Born: July 24th, 2012 at 4:52 pm! She weighs 7 lb. 13 oz. and was 20 inches long!! She is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! Her full name is Marlee Talavou Ochsenbein (Talavou: Beautiful in Tongan) She looks just like her daddy, and loves it when he sings to her! She knows my voice and face, and knows I have the food (booby juice)! She has already changed our lives in such a good way! We are very PROUD parents!! 


Marlee is now 7 days old, and is home in our arms! She is doing wonderfully! She had a GREAT check up when we went in a couple days after delivery! She gained 4 ounces which is awesome for a newborn! She is doing great with feeding, and we are right on track! She is taking a nap with her daddy right now (they look so cute)! Marlee has so many facial expressions its wild! She definitely gets this from her father, as well as her eyes, mouth and forehead! She will probably get my hair, and my teeth ( I hope she doesn't get my vision, I have terrible vision. My husband on the other end has 20/20 vision, so I hope she gets that from him as well!) 


Breastfeeding: 
I didn't know breastfeeding was going to be this hard, yet so easy! Hard in the fact that it's such a sacrifice to feed Marlee every 1-3 hours night and day! Sleep is lacking, and nipples are sore, but Marlee is fed, and is happy, which makes this completely worth it! I've been getting better and better every time getting her to feed! It's awesome to think about how our bodies work to provide for our babies! I have found if you have sore nipples the best thing to use is "Lanolin" and/or air dry with breast milk on nipples. Hand expressing is also good before you have baby latch, so their not sucking so hard to get to the milk, it will already be there for them to drink. Marlee has been doing amazing at this, and continues to grow! (They grow so fast!) 


Sleeping:
Last night Marlee allowed me to sleep from 12:00 am-5:00 am which was AWESOME! I felt so well rested until she woke me up three hours after that to feed again, for some reason I was more tired at 8:00 am ha ha! She is doing better! I have found the more she is awake during the day the more she sleeps at night! I made the mistake tonight to let her sleep late, so now she'll be up soon, and probably will stay awake until midnight again! I need to change this schedule because my husband is going to be going back to work on Friday, so we will need to go to bed around 8:00 pm and Landon wakes up at 4:00 for PT and then goes to work at 7:00 am. He will need the sleep! As for me, I've been doing really good when she needs to feed at night! I either (depending on which side she's laying on) breastfeed her in bed, or take her over to our chair in our room and feed her there. Marlee sleeps with us, and I know the entire pregnancy I was telling everyone how dangerous that is, but our first night here at home, Marlee wouldn't sleep in the crib, or her rocker, she was too cold!  I turned up the heat, and everything, but she still wouldn't sleep. So I took her to bed with me, and she was out, especially with my body heat there to warm her up. So it has worked out ever since. I am a very light sleeper so every move she makes, I wake up to it. I also made a barrier between her and Landon so he wouldn't accidentally roll over. (We do have a California King bed, so we have a TON of room, it's not like he's squished off to the side, he still has a good amount of space over on his side) 


Anyway, I've gotta wake her up now to feed so she won't be too awake later on. Wish me luck!