Georgia is currently having another growth spurt and is a cheeky little thing during the day. She won't sleep {unless it's in the form of super short cat-naps}, she's VERY clingy {thank goodness I'm all for attachment style parenting and enjoy lots of cuddles} & she cries at the drop of a hat {or a chew toy}.

Amidst all the hard stuff though, she is learning so much! She flips from her tummy to her back pretty quickly now. She grabs objects and gives them a cuddle. She has figured out her tongue exists, and has started shoving things into her mouth. Best of all, she recognises me! Every morning when she wakes up grizzling in her cradle, I hover over her & tell her good morning and oh, the smiles. Her whole little face lights up. I'll never get tired of this.

And, she's growing! Four weeks ago, at 7+2 days, Georgia weighed in at 4.630kg. Yesterday, at 11+2 days, she weighed 5.265kg. That's a rate of 150g on average per week. Makes me feel better that my little one is getting what she needs from me, especially since our feeding journey has been pretty darned difficult.

She still feels quite petite for her age, but she's healthy and thriving & has the yummiest little arm and leg rolls that you could seriously devour. I wish it were summer time, so I could have her in short suits all the time!

We're still solely breastfeeding at the moment - it's been a struggle, but I'm happy with how we're going. Georgia feeds on the breast during the day, and we give a top-up bottle just before bed, to encourage her to have a good sleep. Touch wood, but it seems to be going well for us so far. I pump twice a day - morning and bedtime. I don't get a lot, but I'm not as worried about the amounts, especially now that I have a freezer stash I can start working through.

I give massive props to any single mums (or dads!) who are sole parenting - you guys are rockstars. :)

Georgia has been doing the occasional smiles for the past few weeks now. Mostly if you stroke her face, or as she's drifting off to sleep, or as she's tooting happily away in her nappy.

It's only in the past few days that she's starting to smile out of recognition. I thought it was a fluke the first time, as I changed her nappy in the middle of the night & she gummed one out at me. But then, I saw it again and I wasn't so sure! I shed a tear when I witnessed Jason get his first 'daddy' smile this week. He'd just walked in the door and she'd just woken up from a nap, but was still down in her crib. He leaned over to kiss her hello, and she gave him the biggest, cheesiest smile. So beautiful!

Since then, the challenge has been on to capture it on camera. I have loads of blurry attempts, but she flashes it so quickly that I just can't keep up. Until this morning, that is. Are you ready for extreme cuteness?

Oh my word... that's a SMILE. It even lights up her eyes! I had just woken up to the sounds of her grizzling in her crib, so I walked across, leaned over and BAM. Killer. She saw me, her mama, and she smiled up at me.

I decided to test her out again, so I disappeared out of her vision, grabbed my phone and popped up over her cot again. And what do you know? Smiles!

I know all parents are biased, but Georgia is just so darned beautiful. I can't wait to watch her grow up. :)

Also: isn't her bed hair impressive?

Everyone tells you that it'll be hard, but it's one of those things that just doesn't hit home until you're in the middle of it. And in this instance, 'it' is you standing in the living room in your jammies, boobs hanging out, baby poop on your shirt, oily unwashed hair falling out of a bun & an inconsolable screaming, red-faced baby in your arms.

It's not always like this - we have great days, good days & average days as well as the so-ridiculously-hard days.

You see, I didn't have a lot to do with newborns before we started trying to fall pregnant. We don't have a big extended family with littl'uns, we don't have nieces or nephews, and I don't have many friends with children. When we were struggling to conceive, I distanced myself from anything related to babies, because it was too hard to deal with. I read a million books about pregnancy, but very few about what came afterwards.

Georgia is our little guinea pig. We learn as we go, and we're probably going to keep learning until she's 30. I'm beginning to notice the signs for when she's hungry, when she's fussy, and when she's getting tired or overtired.

It's the other moments that are stressful - the ones that leave you in the situation I described in the first paragraph of this blog entry. The times where she will cry, and cry, and cry, and you have absolutely NO idea why. It's the saddest crying, too. The kind where she'll work herself up into sobs. The part that gets me is when a tiny, lonely tear trickles down her face - that's when I feel the worst.

I think most new parents probably go through the same mental checklist that we do: is she fed? clean? cold? hot? in pain from something? cuddled? comfortable? tired? not tired? When you've ticked all the boxes, tried all the soothing techniques you know of, and spent hours googling things like 'Why is my almost 9-week old baby screaming uncontrollably?' ... yep, it's hard. I wish there was an answer for why she has these days or what to do to comfort her, but it's all just trial and error. What works on one day generally doesn't work on another, and we just try to keep our heads above water.

As cheesy as it sounds, I wouldn't trade the hard times for anything. Today was a glorious day. Georgia was happy, had lots of naps, spent some time on her tummy and her back, kept herself happy blabbering away in her bouncer, and fed well. She gave me the most adorable gummy grin after a feed, and barely cried at all. As I type this, she's having an evening snooze in her portacot & is making the most gorgeous sighing sounds in her sleep. When she wakes, we'll be having our bath, bottle, boob & bed routine, trying to lull her into a full night's sleep again.

I'm already seeing my newborn baby disappear, and I'm trying to treasure this stage before she outgrows it. I love to see her growing, but I'm also sad to see her growing. In the midst of the crazy crying fits and the hard, sleep-deprived times, I can honestly see why people do this all over again. I'm going to miss Georgia being this little.

Somehow one month turned into two months and my little lady is 8 weeks old already. How is this happening?

Poor Georgia - she's had it tough these last few weeks! What started out as a nappy rash turned into a BAD nappy rash, turned into a bacterial infection, turned into a contact reaction.

What does that mean? Lots of doctor visits, a bright red baby tush, some tears & a very stressed out and tired mama.

When it first came up, we treated it accordingly - barrier creams, fresh air and nappy free time. When it got worse, I visited the GP the first time. The rash had turned into dark red sores and small red spots along her bum - the first diagnosis was thrush or a fungal infection. That cream didn't solve anything, and things got more and more tender - let's just say things were bleeding. It was awful, and nappy changes were horrific. The next step was a bacterial cream in case it was an infection - and it looks like that was the problem.

We'd been using the cream for a week, and things were starting to heal over. Seeing her little butt looking more normal was refreshing.. until I opened a nappy the day before yesterday to find a new round of bright red patches greeting me. They were in different spots to the original rash, and they were awful! The doctor thinks that some of the strong, prescription anti-bacterial cream might have gotten on the nappy and smeared onto her sensitive lady-bits when it was closed and fastened, and she had a reaction to it.

I'm happy to say that after a few hours of nappy-free time each day, a change to organic disposable nappies and wipes, and a good slathering of barrier cream, things are starting to heal. We are back at the doctor next week, and she is confident that it'll be looking good by then. Poor baby and her poor butt.

Otherwise, Georgia is being her usual beautiful self - aside from the few hours of complete and utter crankiness each evening. Some say it's the witching hour; I'm changing that to the witching HOURS, plural. She is hard work! Refuses sleep, comfort feeds constantly, and will cry and cry with seemingly no cause. We do a lot of snuggling, rocking, bouncing, and nursing each evening, leaving all of us {hubby included} more than a little frazzled. A friend hooked me up to the PURPLE crying website, and it sums us up to a tee.

All in all though? She's a beautiful baby. I still can't believe she's mine! When she looks up at me with those huge blue eyes, it doesn't matter how many hours I've slept, how many hours it's been since I showered, how many jobs I haven't got around to, or how many times I've left the house in the past week - she's mine. :)

I had Georgia weighed at the chemist today, and she's growing!

At last Monday's doctor appointment, she weighed 4.3kg. Today, one week later, she weighed 4.6kg. It's a relief to know that all the feeding we've been doing is finally starting to take off. :)

This has been one heck of a week.

We said goodbye to my Nanna at a beautiful funeral service, where we celebrated her happy, smiling face & released doves into a picture perfect blue sky. It was so very hard, but I know she would have been happy.

This time last year, my period arrived. That usually wouldn't be a momentous or blogworthy event, but it signalled the failure of our first IVF cycle - and brought about a whole stack of emotions. There's no great time for a BFN {big fat negative} but on Mother's Day? It was pretty darned painful.

If you'd told me then that in twelve months, I'd be somebody's mother, I wouldn't have believed you. It was too raw, too unthinkable. What a difference this past twelve months has made to our lives. It's amazing how quickly my heart just exploded with love - it grew from the positive pregnancy test, to the scans, to the heartbeat, and when she made her early arrival into the world. I'm learning new things about her, and about myself, every day.

Today was bittersweet. My first as a mother; my mother's first as a grandmother; and our first without our Nanna. I know she'd be happy that Georgia is here with us today; helping us to grieve & to keep on living. It was a tough day.

And yes, I'm crazy - attempting artwork with a 6-week old was possibly not the smartest idea.. but what can I say? We wanted a sweet gift for the grandma's, and I'm not afraid of a little art and craft - it's the teacher in me! {This was an epic Pinterest fail; Georgia threw an epic tantrum after the first few handprints, so we had to improvise!}

Big love and hugs to all of my mama & soon-to-be-mama friends, but also to those still on their journeys to motherhood. I know first hand just how hard this day can be, and I'm thinking of you and sending hope your way.