The first few days and weeks after having a baby are so tender. There are joys and challenges. I wrote about becoming a mom for the first time and those early days in 2018 after having Sadie, and then what it was like going from one to two kids in 2022 after welcoming Mordecai. Here we are in 2025 and I’m back with more reflections and a touch of oversharing because it wouldn’t be me without a bit of oversharing 😜

Right now, we’re right in the beginning days of being a family of five! As I start to type up this post, I’m just twelve days postpartum. I know I’ll look back lovingly on these words and life will be different even a few weeks from now. I love documenting this time because it’s so intense–less sleep and a new adjustment–but the delight of bringing home a new baby is just unreal and intense in its own happy way. So, let’s dive in!

Dakota

She’s sweet as can be! She looks like how I expected her to look. When I met her, I thought, yup… that’s Dakota! She looks a lot like Sadie as a baby. I’ve even woke up to feed her in the night and had like a deja vu flashback and thought she was Sadie and it was 2018 haha. She also looks like Mordecai in some ways.

When she was first born, we studied her and just oohed and ahhed over her: her little dirty blonde mullet, the same nose crease Sadie had, the same swirly ears and “eye pouches” under her eyes like Mordecai has, her long fingers and tiny legs and button nose. We are curious as to what her eye and hair color will turn out to be! It changes so much in those early years. Her eyes seem to be blue at the moment and her hair is a light brown/dark blonde. Not even two weeks in and she has a nickname from me: Dakota Kubota. Like Kubota tractors… poor girl haha. We’ll see if it sticks.

She is just so precious and feels extra tiny since she has been our smallest baby! She even fit preemie-sized clothes and diapers for the first days of her life (and then I was sad when she outgrew them… I get like that with each kid outgrowing clothes! They just keep growing 😭). I love seeing her in Sadie’s clothes and bows. It’s very nostalgic and reminds me of just how fast babies and children grow. We love all of her little noises, squeaks, and facial expressions. She does this cute cough/sneeze thing every time she’s done eating and I just want to bottle that up snd replay it in the future haha. I am so excited to know who she becomes as she grows. She is so cherished and loved by our whole family 🩷

The First Days

My mom and dad watched Sadie and Mordecai from the time we had Dakota on a Sunday until that Tuesday afternoon. I can’t thank them enough for giving Jimmy and I that time to bond with Dakota. It was very special and Jimmy and I kept saying it felt like a vacation!

The hardest thing body-wise postpartum in the first few days were the after pains each time Dakota would eat. Those pains serve a purpose (they help your uterus shrink back to normal size), but they get stronger with each baby. I was feeling so good after she was first born at the birth center that I didn’t take any ibuprofen or Tylenol. Big mistake, Allie! Those after pains set in and I was shaking and not taking them well at all. I quickly learned to use a heating pad and pain reliever to stay ahead of them. They lasted about three days.

Around day three, my milk came in! Like with Mordecai’s postpartum, it wasn’t a huge noticeable difference as it was with Sadie. With Sadie’s postpartum, I was like what is happening to my chest?! Most importantly, Dakota took my milk coming in well and didn’t struggle with her latch. I am so thankful to God for that!

I can’t remember if it was immediate or within a few days, but I started having postpartum night sweats as my hormones balanced out. I’m still having them almost two weeks later and they’re so gross!! The sweating during this postpartum has been the worst out of the three kids. I wake up absolutely drenched in sweat every single night. This leads to me changing our sheets every single day 😂

Another hard thing is resting. I have felt good physically, so it’s hard to just chill and remember my body had a baby and there’s a wound the size of a placenta on the wall of my uterus. I wanted the kids to feel normal with this huge change so I tried to be a hero and have our pre-Dakota normal days at first. We went on walks and took Sadie to her computer coding class and went to Jimmy’s work. Well, don’t ya know, my bleeding increased. It scared me a bit! I had the midwives check me over and I also told them how I was feeling (guilt over wanting the kids to have their usual, normal days!) and the midwife said this to me: “Your brain is ready to be normal but your body isn’t.” It hit hard. Since then, I have taken it a lot easier. I let Jimmy carry the laundry up the stairs, carry Dakota’s carseat, and lift Mordecai into his carseat. We make a few less outings per day and I’ve spent a lot of extra time reading to Sadie, which we both love. I want to recover well so that when my body is fully healed, we can dive back into our (new) normal life!

Sleep

Dakota is a newborn baby, so her sleep is pretty unpredictable! She had her days and nights mixed up for about two days and the kids have been waking up earlier for some reason (but we love to snuggle in bed each morning so I’m not too mad!). The first night, we woke Dakota up to eat because she was pretty sleepy. Now we let her wake us up, and it’s usually every two to two-and-a-half hours.

I totally forgot how with Mordecai, we had set up a little basket on our bed for each nighttime feed/diaper change and now we have the same thing for Dakota. It’s funny how as a parent, you move on from a phase and forget those little routines! In Dakota’s basket, we keep diapers, wipes, a changing pad, an extra set of her pajamas, stain remover spray, and a bulb syringe in case she has a stuffy nose.

Daylight Savings is coming up, so we’ll see how the big kids do with that adjustment. I’m not too concerned because our sleep is so off anyways hahah. So in the sleep department: we’re off and tired and my brain is foggy. But that’s just how it is in the newborn/baby days!

Sadie and Mordecai

Everyone has been asking me how the big siblings are adjusting and they’re doing great so far! Sadie has been unfazed and Mordecai has had both Jimmy and I home with him since Jimmy took two weeks off of work post-birth. We’ll see how they’re doing when Jimmy is back at work. I’ll be sure to share updates!

Mordecai is so gentle and sweet with Dakota! He’s honestly a gentle and sweet boy, so I never should have worried about him! He called Dakota Hello Kitty, which cracked me up (see this post for the explanation haha). I had Dakota in a swaddle and Sadie said she looked like a Villager from Minecraft, which also cracked me up! It’s really fun to have older kids who can make funny comments. I didn’t have that when Sadie was a baby and it felt lonely. I loved having Sadie with me during Mordecai’s baby days because it felt like we were in it together when Jimmy went back to work. The same is true this time around. We get to find our new normal each day as mom and kids together and it’s an adventure.

As with Mordecai’s postpartum, the adjustment has likely been harder for me than for the kids. I feel guilty not giving them as much of my time and attention, but we’re finding ways to make it work. I have had the hardest adjustment to Mordecai not being the baby anymore. We had Dakota and then he suddenly felt foreign to me. My relationship with him instantly changed. His hands look so big now. He just looks different. I was used to changing his diapers and putting him in his crib, but I was told not to do any heavy lifting, so Jimmy took over those tasks and I felt so distant from my baby boy. I’m getting back to that slowly and of course will be back to it 100% when Jimmy is back to work.

When Dakota was a week old, I was folding laundry on the floor at night and Mordecai said “I miss you” to me and I cried. I’m crying now just typing it. I didn’t know he knew the phrase or concept of missing someone but it broke my heart. Day 5-7 postpartum were when I struggled the hardest with feeling bad for Mordecai (even though he’s doing so well… I know it doesn’t make much sense). Those postpartum hormones!!! I just had deep feelings of missing the relationships I had with the kids before Dakota was born. But I also reminded myself that I didn’t lose Sadie and Mordecai. We gained Dakota. I also reminded myself that this new family dynamic is a blessing! When Mordecai was born, Sadie felt foreign to me. Now we can’t imagine life without Mordecai. I know the same will be true with Dakota and all of our relationships will grow and balance out. Having a newborn takes a lot of emotional energy and eventually that emotional energy will be spread out between the three kids more equally.

Sadie has been great! She looks older to me, but doesn’t feel different to me the way Mordecai does. I don’t feel like our relationship has changed much, probably because she is very self-sufficient at age six. We have full conversations and she is a big helper with Dakota and Mordecai. Jimmy and I make sure to praise and reward her for that! She loves to hold Dakota and pick out her outfits. Mordecai loves to hold her hair and kiss her head and even hold her (with help from us!). A few days after Dakota was born, Sadie asked if we could pray for a baby boy. She wants Mordecai to have a brother… and she said she wants a sleepover at my mom and dad’s again LOL.

Sadie and Mordecai have both noticed my stomach is still semi-pregnant looking as my uterus goes back to its normal size. Mordecai pointed at it and said “Baby?” and I tried to explain Dakota was over on the couch haha. I know as two-year-old, it’s hard for him to grasp that. Sadie was in the shower with me and said “Your stomach is still big and your chest is way bigger!” I took this as a good time to explain body mechanics post-birth! Hopefully she got a sense that I’m comfortable with my body and in awe of how God made a woman’s body to sustain a life in and out of the womb.

Routine

Our days and months before having Dakota were so structured! We had our routines and our family life was a well-oiled machine. Having a baby completely changes that. Do I miss it? Yes, in some ways. I’m so glad Dakota is here and doing so well. I also know this postpartum time is so short and special. I know that we will find a new normal as a family of five because we’ve done it before when we became a family of three and then four.

So, yeah, it’s weird being out of routine and the fact that our old routine is forever gone, but it’s also fun to have this time where Jimmy is home and it’s like a family staycation of survival and fun and discovery. Such a mix!

Our house is chaotic and full of life! It takes everything in Jimmy and I each day to get everyone fed, bathed, clothed, homeschool done, house cleaned, laundry kept up, pets taken care of, etc. but I know we’ll find our groove! Or at least I hope we do 😂

The one routine I’ve kept set in place during this time is my Bible reading time each morning. I have Jimmy wake me up when he gets up so I can drink coffee and do my devotion time before Sadie and Mordecai are up for the day. Is it hard to lose that extra sleep time after a night of being up every two hours? Yes… but nothing compared to losing my time to learn about and worship God and study His word in the quiet of a new day.

Contentment

I’ve been doing a Bible study on contentment and one of the scriptures I studied was Psalm 16. Verses 5-6 have been especially impactful for me:

Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.

Our culture doesn’t love boundaries. We love all-access passes, unlimited data storage, and never-ending buffets. We love being able to communicate constantly via social media and texting. But what if limits and boundaries are good? I know from experience with my kids that limits are good: we limit how much screen time they have and that limit is good.

In Psalm 16, David praised God for boundary lines. What was he talking about? This brings up some Old Testament thoughts about the Promised Land. When Israel advanced into the territory God reserved for them, God gave them boundary lines to mark the land that would be theirs. Those boundary lines weren’t seen as restrictive, but as blessings. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt and now they had a home. The boundary lines weren’t a symbol of God being restrictive, but a symbol of His generosity.

Right now, with three young children to care for, I have boundary lines. Our boundary lines in life are good, whatever the circumstance, because God is good. I have limitless access to God, how could I want more? Deep down, contentment is trust. Trust that where God has me is where I’m supposed to be. Our recent weeks have been blissful. I know as we get back to “real life” there will be more challenges and that’s okay because challenge represents growth and it’s all good because God has me in my boundary lines, right where He wants me to be 🤍

Blessings

So much has been given to us that I’m just in shock and awe and feeling so incredibly loved and cared for. Meals, gifts, childcare, gift cards, prayers, encouragement, check ins, and more. I’ve just been blown away. Want to hear something really crazy? We went out to eat and had the kids with us. It was chaotic and Dakota was eight days old. A couple complimented us on Sadie and Mordecai being well-behaved (!) and we chatted about Dakota. Another couple nearby also talked to us. Both couples left and then our server walked up to us and said the one couple paid for our meal and the other gave us a gift card to the restaurant. What. I was in tears at their generosity. Jimmy and I both agreed that we have been extra inspired to give back to others after we have been experiencing so many blessings lately.

Another blessing I feel like is straight from God has been the weather! Now, we’ve had our chilly and snowy days since Dakota was born, but the weather feels like it is slowly turning after a cold and snowy winter and it has been so good for my soul to get outside with my family. I know we have more cold days ahead, but the sprinkling of sunny, 60 degree days give me a huge boost mentally and physically.

Jimmy

I just love this man. He was so amazing during the pregnancy, birth, and now postpartum. Jimmy is such a rock for our family, works so hard, and is an amazing dad. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in life. It has been the absolute best to grow our family together. The Lord has been so kind to us. It has also been such a treat to have him home for two weeks after Dakota’s birth. We will all miss him so much when he goes back to work!

We get up in the night together to change Dakota or when I feed her and I tell Jimmy every day that there’s no one else I’d rather wake up with in the middle of the night than with him. He brings me coffee in bed each morning and plays and plays and plays with the big kids while I feed Dakota. It has been amazing all over again to see him fall in love with a baby girl!

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Whew, this has to be my longest post yet haha. Over 3,000 words on the joys and emotions of growing as a family! If you read this whole post, thanks for sticking with me! I’ll be back to check in again as we settle into more normal life. Thank you for sharing our excitement and joy during this special time!