This baby is fabulous. She is a delightful creature and I am crazy in love with her.

I am also deleriously sleep deprived and still not anywhere near a recovery from the birth experience.

The sleep deprivation I can handle ... I just cry from exhaustion about twice a day and I can move on and do what needs to be done. Plus there is a light at the end of the tunnel - she will sleep someday!

The effects from the birth are a bit more troublesome. I am still incredibly swollen for 17 days post delivery. There is some pain, still, but more disturbing is the lack of feeling in some areas and the lack of muscle control in others. This translates to incontinence - both kinds - that may or may not resolve as the swelling continues to go down.

My OB is giving me another week to heal and see what happens before we send me to a specialist. If we end up at a specialist, that likely means surgery to try to repair the muscles (and nerves?) that aren't working. Ugh.

This baby is a miracle and totally and absolutely worth whatever we have to do. But I am starting to feel a little bit angry that I got hit first with infertility and now with this.

I am not letting it interfere with my enjoyment of my daughter - that's a guarantee. She is too precious for me to want to miss one moment of her existence. I'm doing a good enough job that the sleep deprivation is far more detrimental to my quality of life than the incontinence/pain issues are.

Meanwhile, the rest of my body is doing well. I'm only four pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight, even with all of the holiday junk food (yeah!). Those few extra pregnancy pounds really did melt right off. And breastfeeding is a piece of cake ... The baby is gaining about two ounces a day (mommy's little piggie!), and I am already pumping an extra 6 ounces a day to freeze.