before i continue on about those first weeks, i wanted to put down some things i've been thinking about, and then i'll get back to the ick, yay! :)
i often think about those first several weeks, and while it was seriously hell while i was IN it, i thank God often for the blessings that arose from it. i know that i would've appreciated the wonderful darlingness and sweetness that IS my sara catherine, my appreciation now is in a total other dimension, in no small part because of the ppd. there was so much that i was in constant despair about in those weeks, so i take every single second of a) not feeling that way anymore and b) everything sc does that is NOT like those days, as a total blessing. that i've now made it through months of caring for sc as a stay at home mom, without crying, is a miracle compared to the beginning. when sc cries now, i generally know what's wrong or i can at least soothe her and make her smile and distract her out of her worries. i look so forward to going into her room and looking into her crib every morning when she wakes up, and she looks up at me with this smile that looks like it might BURST off her face because she's so excited to see me! and the pats her own little tummy and SMACKS her lil legs up and down on the mattress in her happiness! what greeting in the entire WORLD is better than that??
oh my gosh, and the sleeping?? i've come to realize that i need unreasonable amounts of sleep to feel normal, and i know now that a huge chunk of the reason the ppd lasted as long as it did was that i wasn't getting sleep. and i was 100% positive that i was never going to get sleep again, in more than 2-hour increments, for the next 18 years. the spectre of that huge void of rest weighed very heavily on me. everyone said it would get better and i appreciated their comforting, but didn't believe it for an instant. and it DID. miraculously, sc started sleeping longer than 3 hours at a time, and for 10 weeks, 3 hours was the very longest stretch there was. but she did it! and eventually she even slept through the night, and has been doing so for few couple of months now. i ALWAYS appreciate sleep, but after those first weeks, plus the ppd, i thank God for any and all sleep i get, and sc is an awesome night sleeper. what a blessing! she rarely naps during the day longer than 20-30 minutes though i definitely encourage it, but i have no negative feelings about that whether i should or not. because we are already so blessed with her night sleeping.
sc will be 7 months old in 10 days - i can't believe she's already that old. she is growing like a darling lil weed and already in mostly 9months - 12months clothes. my sister sara got me a 5-year diary, where you write a line or 2 each day, and i've got all the pages since sc's birthday filled for this year. when i miss a few days, i out down what i can remember or i go find mommy/daughter quotes and write them down. 
