Lots of visitors!

Saturday was a big day of meeting new family and friends for Miss Melanie. She met Uncle Randy for the first time, and got to see Aunt Cory & Cousin Charlie again; she met Shirley & Suzi, Scott & Lori, Christal, and saw Laura, Aunt Julie, and Grandma Doan again. She slept through most of the visiting, and also slept through most of the night! She continues to prefer to be held while she sleeps at night, but that's okay - the "sleeping" part is the beauty of it! She slept on her own upstairs this morning for a while, so at least she knows how to sleep on her own!

Mom continues on the mend; I don't think I took it easy enough the first couple of days (hard to when your newborn is literally inconsolable all night long), and my stomach has started really bothering me. Today is a take-it-easy day, and I'm going to try to limit climbing the stairs today as much as possible.

Melanie and Daddy are watching the Purdue game now; this is her second game since she's been born, hopefully this one will have a better outcome than the last one!

Next weigh-in is tomorrow morning; I think she's going to top 6 pounds!

Packing it on

Now that Melanie is on a formula diet, she is doing MUCH better, in all senses of the word. She slept last night (!!), she is consolable (!!), and she is up to 5lbs, 14oz (!!) YAY Melanie!!

She has a big day planned today with lots of visitors, including meeting her Uncle Randy for the first time. Will post pictures of Melanie's latest adventures later. In the meantime, wanted to let you know that everyone at the Worzala household is feeling much better!!

Lab follow up

The doctor didn't agree with our self-diagnosis to forgo the lab work, so we headed back out to the third medical establishment this afternoon, and Mel got her heel pricked again - again sleeping right through it!! I of course have more photos of this adventure (including the big heat pack they put to warm up her heel), but photo downloads will have to wait. In the meantime, I have posted another picture of her adventures from the first two doctor visits earlier this morning. Yes, that's the disposable hospital hat on her head. Nothing else fits little Miss Melanie's head just yet!!

Big day for Melanie

Last night, we called the on-call doctor at about 3am because of the gas we thought we were hearing in Melanie's tummy. We started giving her gas drops, applied a warm compress to her tummy, and took her for a car ride. Since the car ride calmed her down, the doc said she probably wasn't in pain. Well, we learned this morning that the "gas" we thought we were hearing are probably hunger pains because she's not getting enough food!

We went for our first weigh-in this morning, where we found out that Miss Melanie has lost a pound since birth. No wonder the poor girl can't sleep at night; she's HUNGRY!! We are going to start feeding her more frequently, and using formula as well as the breast milk that we were already attempting. So far, today, she has been very content, sleeping while lying down by herself (which she hasn't been doing), sleeping through a needle stick in the heel, and being a little calmer. Well, she's always calm when being held; but not so much when it's really time to sleep. In the last two nights combined, we have gotten about 3 hours of sleep. Hopefully this new diet will satisfy Miss Melanie and let her and her parents sleep a little.

We're going for a follow-up weigh in tomorrow morning (Saturday), and a follow-up doctor appointment on Monday morning. In the meantime, we went to get her bilirubin retested (picture of her battle wound above); but the lab just called and they messed up the sample when they went to process it!! The doctor doesn't see any cause for concern over the bilirubin (which measured borderline when we checked out of the hospital on Wednesday), but in the bright lights of the doc's office, we thought she looked a little more yellow. Now we see we were probably imagining things, since we were slightly hallucinating this morning from the lack of sleep.

Please keep Mel in your prayers while we try to bulk her up for her next weigh-in! If only mommy had this problem of losing weight so quickly!

Lucky Girl!

Melanie is surrounded by people who love her - including all four of her grandparents! This is the first granddaughter for both sets of grandparents.

Grandma & Grandpa Doan, who live in Frankfort, are welcoming the first of two grandbabies for 2008; Melanie will have a new cousin in July when Aunt Julie & Uncle Matt have a new baby. Julie, Matt, and Baby Miller live in Frankfort.

Grandma & Grandpa Worzala, who live in the Detroit area, have one grandson, Charlie, who will be two in August, and then Charlie will have a little brother or sister in August when Cory & Randy have their 2008 baby. Cory, Randy, Charlie, and new BabyW live in Chicago.

Melanie will have a lot of fun over the years, not only being spoiled by her grandparents, aunts, and uncles, but also having cousins who are so close to her age. Also, both of her aunts (Julie and Cory) are licensed teachers and love kids, so even more reasons to be so lucky!

Miss Melanie and Daddy

Jeffery is in love with another woman. And that is okay with me - I am too! Here are a few photos so hopefully you can get to know her a little better. We go for our first weigh-in tomorrow morning; after being born at 6lbs, 6oz, she was at 5lbs, 14oz when we left the hospital (perfectly normal). She is so TINY for a full-term baby; I was under the understanding that she was going to be 40 lbs?!?

We are giving blessings for such a wonderful gift from God.

The story behind the name....

I'll get more pictures posted soon, I promise!

Melanie's first name was one we just fell in love with (but, I was telling the truth when I said we weren't 100% decided before she was born!!) Once we met her, we knew her name was Melanie Grace.

Grace is my great-grandma's name; my dad's mom's mom. It is also my sister's middle name (Julia Grace). I always teased Julie that if I had a girl first, I was using Grace - it's become pretty popular over the last couple of years, but I still love it, so I used it as a middle name.

Melanie Grace has a good set of lungs on her, and is calling me now; but I always want to hear how people pick their babies' names, so I thought I'd share our own story with you.