Home again!

We started home almost as soon as I was released from the hospital Saturday afternoon. We had to stop for the night about 5 hours away from home. Then we made it all the way home by 3 pm Sunday afternoon. It was a long hard trip that I'm still trying to recover from.

We spent the night by ourselves - sent the babies off to my mother-in-law's house. We slept in really late & then Andrew went to go get Simon. We played with him all day! Andrew's going to bring Rachel home tomorrow.

Brenda (my mother-in-law) called earlier to let us know that Rachel stood up on her own without holding onto anything else. Brenda said she turned away for a second & the next thing she knew Rachel was standing holding on to a toy! While we were gone she mastered some words - bye-bye with hand motions (means both the obvious as well as come get me I want to be with you), mama, nana, dada, and papa. Mom sent me a video of her doing it.

It makes me sad to miss some of these firsts of Rachel's. I feel like I've not bonded as well with her as I could have. Simon was so dependant and connected to me (quite literally a lot of the time) when he was this age. I still felt kind of left out sometimes because Andrew has always had quite a way with him. However, at least I knew I was providing him w/ something vital that linked us all the time.

Poor Rachel has been continually separated from me it seems. First it was chemo separation. I was with her, but not really b/c I was somewhat miserable from the chemo. Then I had my 1st surgery, so I was unable to hold her for 2 weeks. Then even after I healed from that surgery, I've had some issues with not being able to hold her close b/c of my expanders and pain. Then we kind of settled in with each other. However, now we've been separated for a long time again & I won't be able to hold her for at least 2 weeks again. In a few weeks (3-4 maybe) I plan on trying to have my 2nd stage of my reconstruction done. So that'll be *another* separation.

However, I still feel like she's more bonded with others than she is with me. Maybe part of it is because I don't have that same closeness of nursing her. Another part of it is that I feel like I've just been so worried about myself that I've not been able to be as single-minded with her. I don't feel like she's been neglected or anything. Its just that I have uber Mommy guilt I guess.