INTRODUCING... Eva Affina Kimber! (What?! It's a girl!)

 Hoorayyy!!! It's the day we've all been waiting for! Haha

She has a dimple on her left cheek <3 <3

On Friday, April 16 at 1:18am, David and I welcomed Eva Affina Kimber into our world. 
She came in fast and furious, with a 3.5 hour labour! 

Weight: 9 lb 2 oz (yup... you read that right)
Length: 53 cm
Head Circumference: 35.5 cm

She did not fit the newborn diapers at the hospital, or the newborn clothes we brought along. We crammed her into a newborn sleeper for the drive home, and then had to go through the girl clothes and upsize everything to 0-3 and 3 months haha. I have so many adorable newborn girl sleepers, a little sad we were robbed of being able to wear those! 

Dom & Emilia's stats respectively: 
Weight: 8 lb 8 oz / 7lb 6 oz
Length: 51 cm / 48.5 cm
Head Circumference: 35.5 cm / 35 cm

Full birth story to come of course, but we are back home and adjusting to life as a family of 5! The kids are very excited to meet Eva, and very exhausted from hanging out at Opa and Oma's for a couple days. 

Where'd the name come from?
When trying to think of a girl name, everything I came up with ended up being too similar to Emilia. Maliah, Leah, etc. etc. Clearly I have a style! Dave came to bed one night and said, "Hey... how about Eva?" I thought for a moment, and we both knew that was it! Eva is the name of David's paternal grandmother. She's been gone for many years now, and I never got to meet her, but I have only heard wonderful things and know she is a very well respected member of the Kimber family! David's words, "She was the sweetest, littlest old lady you've ever met. Classic little old lady Grandma." For a long time apparently she weighed 98lb, and David's dad pointed out that Eva is already 10% of Grandma Eva's weight! Haha
Affina is my maternal Oma's name, and my middle name. I think it's just the most beautiful name, and I'm excited to be able to honour her and carry it on with little Eva!

We're so glad we had a girl so that we could use this name! We had two boy names picked out, but we weren't super thrilled with either of them. This one was a winner, so we're very blessed to have been able to use it. It's the only reason I had any preference over whether we had a boy or a girl this time around. Oh and we already have girl clothes for the appropriate season because Emilia was born in May :)

Eva is a feisty big little girl, but I'm soaking up the newborn phase as it for some reason feels easier than parenting the big kids right now. I mean I'm kind of forced to when she's awake 4 hours straight every night and won't be put down haha! 

Our 24 hour checkup was delayed because we came home from the hospital early, and then again because the midwife yesterday was attending two births, but we finally got to it today. Today I woke up and started weeping for the first time since Eva was born. Ahhhh yes... Day 3 hormones! That means my milk is coming in! The first week was really really hard for me with Dom, and also hard with Emilia in regards to breastfeeding, milk supply and weight gain. Because Eva is so big, I was extra nervous that I wouldn't be able to supply enough for her. Alas, our midwife checkup went great. Better than I expected for sure!

Eva has lost 7% of her birth weight, which is well within the normal range, and I'm not worried about it because just today my milk is coming in. I was nervous about the number of wet diapers we'd had, and was imagining her skin being yellow. While Jan (midwife) was here, Eva had two poops, a pee, and is apparently very pink with zero signs of jaundice. Jan thinks that because Eva is so large and strong, that she has a very strong sucking reflex that has allowed my milk to come in faster and in greater amounts than the other two kids. I was worried I could only get her to eat for 5-10 minutes on each side before popping off and going to sleep, but it sounds like there's a good chance she's just really efficient and satisfied after that. The other two kids I had to force to be awake and nurse for 15-20 minutes actively on each side for every feed for a while. That meant feeds took over an hour each time. 

There is still a lot of time for us to have ups and downs, and they will come, but today is an up and I feel excited about that. I feel a great sense of relief that my instincts are good and that she's doing well. 

I think our little girl here has her days and nights mixed up though. She is passed out beside me on the couch right now, and was asleep in the swing earlier this morning. At night, though, I cannot put her down. She has long awake stretches and is generally fussier. I imagine part of that is just cluster feeding to get my milk in, so maybe tonight she'll be more settled, but she does not like to sleep flat on her back. Last night I put her in the Love 2 Dream swaddle (which should be way too big for her, but... she's big!) and she seemed to kind of like that. Finally at about 345am after me not sleeping more than 3 minutes at a time for the last 4.5 hours, I decided to bring her upstairs to bed with me. She would sleep in my arms, but I wasn't comfortable doing that on the couch because I was so exhausted. We snuggled in bed and slept soundly for around 2 hours until she got hungry again. 

I think our nighttime routine for right now will be...
9-1130 or so: Dave hang out with Eva downstairs while I go sleep upstairs.
The rest of the night: Me on Eva duty so that Dave can sleep. I handle lack of sleep better (thank you hormones), there's more I can do for a fussy baby than Dave can, and hopefully with Dave getting more rest he'll be able to function for the other kids during the day and help out in other ways like food, etc! Once she starts doing longer stretches at night and/or I get her to sleep in the bassinet I'll move up to our bedroom as well. With the other two kids I had the bassinet/swing beside the bed and would take them to the nursery to feed when they woke up so that Dave could sleep. That worked well for us, so we will likely do that again. I like having the light on, having the support of the chair, I don't usually watch TV while I'm nursing at night, etc. So it works for us!

Despite having a 3.5 hr labour and a 9lb 2 oz baby, I am feeling quite well recovery-wise. I'm quite puffy, which makes me look funny I think. My feet are really puffy and it feels weird to walk. My face is all puffed out and any wrinkles I had were gone, so I look weirdly young and baby-faced haha. 

After Emilia we took all these beautiful photos in the hospital, but I wasn't feeling up for it this time, and we haven't gotten around to it at home yet, so some mediocre phone pictures will have to do for now! Here's a few pics from our first days with Eva <3

Literally taken 12 minutes after she was born haha. We didn't have time to look exhausted yet

So much hair! The heartburn myth reigns true on this one! We have lots more hospital photos, but I'll probably save those for the birth story post :)

Hooray for being 3rd time parents and getting early discharge! Just had to wait on Eva to have a pee, and for Mommy to be monitored for low heart rate for a bit, and we were good to go! Home by dinnertime on Friday!

Such a beautiful Spring week to have a baby! Eva and I sat outside for a bit yesterday before the kids came home at nap/quiet-time.

Then these two got to meet their baby sister! Emilia is obsessed with tucking her in and making her comfortable. Dom is currently measuring how tall she is haha. 

The kids are tired and overwhelmed, so we took them outside for some play time yesterday. Also SO good to get out in the fresh air! Eva liked the wrap too :) I think she'll spend a lot of time in there! Emilia took her own blanket out for her baby, and we were talking about how we need to get her baby a blanket.

10 Minutes later, Great Oma came by with a gift for us/Eva. She had knitted a blanket for her! It's perfect :) (Dom's favorite tattered blanket is the one she gave us for him when he was born too). 

Being the brilliant mind that she is, Oma also included a wrapped gift for "Emilia's Baby". It had a mini version of the same blanket! Absolutely perfect! The timing couldn't have been better :)

My little chubster is asleep beside me as I finally sit down to write this up. I love her so much and am soaking her up. I am grateful to have her earth-side now, and not be carrying all that inside of me anymore. 

Because I don't know when I'm going to get around to it, here are some pictures from the day Eva was born, but before we knew what was to come that day! Haha

It was a beautiful and hot April 15. Dom had preschool, so I dropped him off there, and Dave and Emilia came to my midwife appointment with me and then we went to a park to play for a bit. 

Dave and I both napped during the day, and after nap and quiet time, we spent the entire afternoon outside. It was just way too beautiful out! Mommy wanted to get walking, but couldn't go far, so Emilia and I went and watched cars and went to the little playground. 

Dom and Daddy stayed back to play hockey, and when we got back we decided to order pizza for dinner and just stay outside for the rest of the evening til bedtime!

Oh my gosh, the belly. Last family of 4 selfie!

After our fun day in the sun, at 9:45 pm as we were about to get ready for bed my water broke. For the rest you'll have to wait til my birth story post!