5 Life Updates April 2022

Thank you all for all the love, kindness, and support you have shared since we welcomed Henry into our lives last week. We are overcome with joy and soaking up all the newborn snuggles. I want to freeze time and enjoy this special, fleeting season with my second baby and bottle up his wonderful newborn-ness forever. I am really leaning into the newborn phase with henry and not trying to move from one thing to the next or get to-dos done. Instead, I am letting him constantly nap on me and soaking up all that he is in these first days and weeks of his life. We are just a week into his life but it makes me weepy to think about how quickly he will go from being a newborn to a baby.

Anywho, here are 5 life updates April 2022 including Henry, my beautiful push present, lactation support I sought out, family visiting, and the party I threw 4 days before having Henry. All wonderful things!

On a sidenote, I can’t stop wearing this beautiful blue and white Pink City Prints dress! I known I’ll be wearing it non-stop now after giving birth too. I’m wearing a size small for reference but could take it in an XS too and be great. It also comes in a lovely pink and red print too. My vase (here in blue and here larger in green) is from Land of Belle and simply stunning! It has been a favorite of mine for a few years now.

5 Life Updates April 2022

We Welcomed Henry Into Our Family

Our biggest update of all this month and most likely of the year happened earlier this week! We welcomed baby Henry into our family and couldn’t be more overjoyed about the addition to our lives. We feel immensely blessed that Henry is healthy and doing well in his first week of life. So we are soaking up these early days and adjusting to life as a family of four. Rowan is taking in his new role as a big brother and has already started to say “Henry!” Wish us luck as we embark on the sleepy newborn days! For more on Henry’s arrival, head to my blog post, Introducing Joseph Henry Eversole!

The Neely & Chloe x Dondolo Party I Hosted

The week before last, I had the sincere pleasure of hosting two brands I love dearly, Neely & Chloe and Dondolo, at my house for an event to celebrate their gorgeous collection! We assembled the most incredible group of women who I am so proud to know and count as friends for a beautiful evening of celebrating, shopping, sipping, and connecting. My blog has afforded me so many wonderful things and at the top of the list is the women I’ve made and grown relationships with. Founders like Cat of Dondolo and Neely and Chloe of Neely & Chloe are three gems who I feel fortunate to know through my blog. They are such creative, savvy, and intelligent business women. Our night was an absolute blast! More all the details, head to my blog post on the event and shop the collection there yourself!

My Beautiful Push Present

At the beginning of the month, we found my push present at the annual Charleston Antique Show. Edwin has given me the greatest gift I’ll ever receive in this life, which is his love and our family but little gifts along the way, like my push presents for our children, are wonderfully beautiful additions to our story. With Rowan, I had my heart set on a locket, which is exactly what Edwin generously got for me. We selected it from Croghan’s Jewel Box and engraved the back of it with all of Rowan’s birth information. I wear it multiple days a week and couldn’t cherish it more.

With my second pregnancy, I didn’t have a set idea and was hoping something would just come to me and feel right.

All I knew was that I wanted something that could be engraved and I hoped for something that incorporated the April birthstone of diamonds. Well, my whole pregnancy went by and nothing felt right until we found the piece 10 days before I gave birth. It is a 1960s estate pearl ring with little diamonds surrounding it. I was thrilled to find something that incorporates diamonds into the push present making it feel tailored to Henry’s birth month.

I don’t have the ring yet because the estate jeweler we found it through is sizing it and engraving it for me but I should have it by the end of this week. The band is thick enough to engrave on the inside. So we are having it hand engraved with Henry’s initials and birthdate. I plan to pass the ring down to Henry’s future wife one day, which makes my heart swell with great joy. I think jewelry really does become a part of your family story with pieces like this, which is why I was so adamant about finding something that could be engraved for my unique, special, gorgeous second baby. Edwin, I couldn’t love it more and can’t wait to wear it all the time and think about you and Henry when I slip the ring on my finger.

My Sister is Coming to Visit

It is always the best news when my sister, Sarah, comes to town today! She was here last month but she is making a special trip back to meet baby Henry. She’s had this trip planned for awhile, which made saying goodbye when she left last month so much easier! In the early newborn days, you spend so much time on the sofa or in bed curdled up with the new baby. I feel so grateful that Sarah will be here for a week of these days to chat with and keep me company. There is nothing quite like the bond of sisterhood. Okay Sarah, now land already!

Lactation Support

I nursed Rowan for not nearly as long as I thought I would. We struggled out of the gates and it took us what felt like forever to figure out what was making it so challenging for us. In hopes of avoiding any unforeseen issues this time around, I scheduled an in-home lactation consultant to come to our house 5 days after I was scheduled to give birth. Just knowing I had the appointment gave me an extra level of confidence and support that I knew I mentally needed. In my opinion, anything you can do to help mom recover, heal, nurse (if you choose to do so), and thrive + anything you can do to support the baby’s adjustment into the world, is worth it!

I should dedicate a whole blog post to this topic because I know I will get questions about it but, so far, I am having a completely night and day different experience with nursing Rowan and Henry. It is going so great with Henry in a way I didn’t know possible from my previous experience. It just goes to show that every baby is different. For anyone curious, I went to the Breastfeeding Center of Charleston after having Rowan and had a really great experience there. After giving birth to Henry, I booked Baby Settler. I made the switch only because Baby Settler does in-home visits, which sounded really nice (and it was!). But I would confidently refer anyone to both the breastfeeding Center and to Baby Settler – both have been fantastic in my experience! I was able to submit my insurance for both as well.