Baby Jenna - 2 weeks old!

My beautiful little girl is now 2 weeks old - and what a crazy two weeks it has been! I'm starting to feel a little more like myself again after the c-section which is a relief. I had some trouble with my incision after I got home from the hospital and ended up in the emergency room the day after I was discharged from the hosptial. Then 3 days later I had a severe allergic reaction to something and had a rash/hives all over my body, a fever, and my face was swollen. That resulted in one trip to urgent care and one trip to the emergency room where they finally put me on a steroid which cleared it up within a couple of days. It was nice to have some relief from the itching - it was pretty miserable! We still aren't 100% sure what caused the reaction, but we think it was due to the morphine they gave me in the hospital. I'm allergic to codiene, and morphine is in the same family. From what I could tell online, drug allergies can show up days or weeks after exposure.

In addition to my own recovery, my father-in-law is now in the hospital recovering from his own surgery. On Tuesday of last week he had a colonoscopy after going to the Dr. initially for high blood pressure. They sent him on to a urologist after discovering that his PSA level was high, and while his prostate was ok, they discovered a mass during his physical exam. The colonoscopy discovered that he had colon cancer, and on Monday he had already had surgery to remove the lower part of his colon. The fantastic news is that they have determined it was Stage 1, it had not invaded any of the surrounding tissue and they were able to remove all visible cancer during surgery. We are so thankful for such a good prognosis! Dan's take-charge attitude has been so admirable and I have all the respect in the world for him! He told the surgeon to go in and get it out and not mess around. This was definitely scary to go through, but we are all SO blessed it was caught early. Dan is "a healthy guy, besides this whole cancer thing" as his surgeon put it. He should be in the hospital a couple more days and then home recovering for about 6 weeks. Love you Dan!

While the last couple of weeks have been tough, I am so excited and thrilled to be getting to know my new baby girl. It didn't take me long to become completely smitten with her. Even when she gets up in the middle of the night, which is often, I'm still excited to go in and get her. She's been nursing really well, although she isn't back to her birth weight yet so the pediatrician is keeping a close eye on her. I can't quite figure out why she isn't putting on more weight because I feed her so frequently. Maybe she will have a fast metabolism! I think it is likely due to the stress that my body has been under from the surgery and allergic reaction. I've only been off medications for a couple of days now. Love you Baby Jenna! Welcome to the family!