The First Year - A Pictorial Review

I had a really hard time bonding with my girls in the beginning.  I'm such a planner and nothing was going as planned.  I was still trying to grasp the fact that I had two babies and mourning the loss of participation in childbirth.  Compounding that, perpetual exhaustion left me irritable and somewhat irrational.  While I loved my children, I was completely jealous of women that got to experience one newborn at a time.  When I was caring for one baby, there was another one begging for my attention.  I felt like a failure.

 

The first month I cried out to God every ngiht that He promised He wouldn't give me more than I could handle and I just couldn't handle this.  Julia wasn't latching properly so I was pumping.  I felt like a dairy cow.

 

 

We got the latch issue fixed.  Praise God for Mona, a lactation consultant at St. John's.  Things were getting better.

 

The girls slept through the night as their Mother's Day present to  me.  I couldn't have asked for a better gift.

 

This was the month they were dedicated.  Thank you, Donalyn, for sewing the frill down around the neckline of their dresses so they looked like angels rather than clowns.

 

 

By now they could roll over.

 

They perfected sitting on their own this month.  Julia became a much happier girl when she reached this milestone.

 

By this month they had discovered that they could really get places by rolling.

 

 

Sadly, I can't find any seven month pictures.

 

By nine months they discovered that they could pull themselves up and loved nothing more than standing.

 

Let the climbing begin. They climbed into their stroller, up Jonathan's night stand, into drawers, etc. They still couldn't walk, but they were fully mobile.

 

Let the cruising begin!

 

Happy 1st Birthday girls!  Amelia took her first unassisted step at her birthday party.  Julia kept up by using her walker.

 

Gradually things got better and better throughout the year.  I made amends with God, I was getting more sleep at night, I didn't feel like a constant failure anymore, and I was fully able to bond with my children.  Looking back on it, I probably had Post Partum Depression.  Praise God for all my friends and family that stuck by me through everything.  I know I wasn't pleasant to be around and I certainly had nothing to give anyone.  And yet my closest friends and most of my family were very understanding.  Thank you!