News pics with visitors and a first walk

I'll be writing another post recapping my week home with my two favorite women in the world, but for the moment just wanted to call out an update on the photos. Two new albums--one from visits with the Larsen family and my folks, the other with our first family walk and some other random "cute shots."

As always, check is out on Amber's photo album, or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed (I've used SharpReader on the desktop, and Google Reader online) and get all the updates.

Almost two weeks!

It's hard to believe that Sunday will be two weeks since little Coraline joined us. The time has flown by, although in that strange way that memory works it's also hard to remember what it was like before she came along and snagged our hearts in her tiny, perfect little hands.

Everyone is doing well. She's had her first doctor's appointment and is gaining weight right on track. Learning to feed has been a bit of a challenge for both Amber and Coraline, but they're great partners and are making it work.

In other fantastic news, I believe we won the baby lottery--Coraline will gladly sleep 4-6 hours at a stretch if she gets fed well and settled (i.e. no diaper/clothes changes after the feeding). I wasn't expecting to get this type of sleep for months, and it makes all the additional things that come with having a baby much easier to handle.

I went back part-time to work this week while my mom was gracious enough to help us out, but I'll be taking the next full week off here. I'm so looking forward to having the time to just spend with my wife and daughter, hanging around the house, our own newly-expanded family.

Anyway, more pictures will be on the way when I get a chance to post them, but life is good since Coraline's arrived!

Homecoming and first bath

Coraline is one week old, and to celebrate we went for dinner at Pho Van... well, actually it just sounded good to Amber but that's reason enough. Fed up Cora right before, and she was meek and mild the whole time.

I've posted two new albums on the site with photos from the last few days' happenings. You can catch them at http://picasaweb.google.com/amber.d.clark. They capture us bringing Coraline home last Thursday, and her first bath just earlier today. Oh the excitement!

Day 2 at home

Yesterday we finally got to come home from the hospital, roughly six days after we initially went in. Whew, things didn't quite go as planned, but still we came away with a positive experience. The nursing care was exceptional, the labor was hard but not as bad as Amber anticipated, and the C-section that we needed to do at the end wasn't that big of a deal despite my oft-present queasiness.

But now the real fun begins--acclimating to life at home. After several days in the hospital, we'd gotten into a bit of a routine. Amber knew where in the room she could feed most easily, she at least could get room service with a phone call, and there were nurses around all the time to answer questions.

Home provides a whole new learning curve, and I've got to say we're tired. Amber especially, since she's still recovering from major abdominal surgery (why doesn't a C-section seem like major surgery sometimes? It really is!)

Coraline for her part has continued to be pretty fantastic. She rests for several hours at a time regularly--we've had to wake her up for feedings rather than the other way around. Last night she decided that the midnight to 2:30am shift was a great time to fuss, but I've gotten several blocks of > 2 hr. sleep so I'm not complaining.

Hugh and Susan are both here through Sunday, and it's been fun to watch them grand-parenting with Coraline. It's been a blessing to have family and friends around us. I don't know how people do this without that type of support.

Anyway, it's getting to bed-time, so I'm off. Maybe more pictures tomorrow... we'll see what we can do.

More photos

I've posted another crop of photos to the Coraline album on Picassa. You can check them out at http://picasaweb.google.com/amber.d.clark/Coraline.

We'll continue to put up more pictures, and may add other albums so you can also check http://picasaweb.google.com/amber.d.clark for all the latest and greatest in cuteness!