One Month

Little Man is one month old today.  Happy one month, buddy! 

Full Time Job

So, I've had a few jobs in my life, honestly more than I can count. This is the first time I've ever had a 24 hour job and it is HARD! Don't get me wrong, it is also the most rewarding job I've ever had (and he isn't even cooing at me yet) and I love it, but it is hard and there is no retiring at the end of it.

LM has started to give me some challenges, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing of major concern, but he did finally tire of being the perfect angel child that he was when we brought him home. I think it may have something to do with 1. sin nature 2. I'm new at this 3. he's the only one getting enough sleep around here 4. my mommy went home.

I'm grateful that being a mom is a full time job with no option to retire because I would be completely lost without mine. Just today she was able to save the day, from 450 miles away and through a hail of tears, anger, frustration from me. She reminded me that the dishes can wait, the baby won't disintegrate if he doesn't get a bath today, I'm smarter than him, that I can do this, and that I've got lots of prayer in our corner. It sounds simple, but I needed to hear it.

Thanks, Mom, thanks for not retiring and still being there for me while I figure this job out!

The truth about Little Man

He is wonderful and amazing, and not perfect. This is him having had enough of the post-Easter service photoshoot.

Still cute though :)

Our First Rough Night

Well, we made it. The first rough night is officially behind us, and it wasn't all that bad!

Little Man had his second dinner around 10:30 and went down around 11:15. I went to bed at the same time, hoping to get as much sleep as possible. He woke up for his 2am feeding (third dinner? first breakfast?) and went back down without much fuss.

Then things went a little wacky. LM didn't eat again until 7:40! That is 5 hours, friends. Normally, I'd be excited about a 5 hour stretch except that while he was not interested in eating he was very VERY focused on his other major task (the other end) for that entire 5 hour stretch.

Translation: Frank and I didn't sleep much due to the random cries and nearly constant grunting coming from our tiny roommate.

The good news is, LM is sleeping now and seems to have 'worked out' his issues for the most part. I'll aim for a nap this morning and hopefully Frank can make it through the day without falling asleep in court...

Happy to have the first rough night behind us, though I'm sure there are many more (and many worse) to come.

Also - another first, while having his breakfast (from a bottle), I sat LM up to burp him and milk began coming out of his mouth AND NOSE. I freaked! Luckily, Frank saved the day with the aspirator and we got everything cleared out. Not cool, Little Man, not cool.

The New Normal

For the next 9 and 1/2 weeks (so few already??), this is the new normal. I'm sitting downstairs, ignoring a fresh pile of clean laundry, watching my son nap on the baby monitor. He just stirred a bit, but he has about 9 more minutes before he wakes up and realizes that he is HUNGRY.

Yes, my awesome kid is already on that much of a schedule. I love it.

I'm going to try to get better about posting now that he is here and life is beginning to slow down again. If nothing else I can at least throw up a picture or two on occasion. Forgive me if I fail, I promise I'm trying!

So, here are some pictures - these are from the past 20 days and mostly taken by my mom since I was too preoccupied with feeding him and getting as much sleep as I could while mom was here.

I swore I'd never post the "I just had a baby" picture, but thanks to Little Man's 10 minutes of active labor, I think I can confidently say that I do not look like I just got hit by a truck as I crossed the finish line of a marathon....so, here it is.

Here is the part where I get to fall in love with Frank all over again as he begins his new role of "Daddy."

At home and napping in the moses basket made by Grammie.

He makes awesome faces.

Already a tradition, LM's first I would say - passing out on Dad while watching baseball. Here's to a summer full of these kinds of naps!

The Arrival

Our little one breezed past his due date with comfortable ease, leaving me a little sad and quite tired of being pregnant. So, at my appointment the following Tuesday I signed up for an induction on Wednesday morning at 8am.

Frank and I arrived at the hospital, almost on time, and were sent straight up to Labor and Delivery. It was a little surreal being there since I was not in labor, but knowing that we wouldn't be leaving without our baby on the outside anyway.

Here is the final picture of me before our little one arrived. I'm not sure how I was able to stand upright...

They started me on a saline IV at 8:30, then started the pitocin shortly thereafter. The contractions got stronger and closer together, but as of 10:30 I hadn't made much progress.

I asked for the epidural (part of the plan all along) around 12/12:30 as the contractions were getting too strong and close together for me to catch my breath. The first attempt only took on my right side, but the anesthesiologist came back quickly and redid it, and the second time worked like a charm.

I was then able to take a good nap from about 2-4pm. We dimmed the lights, closed the blinds, and I really got some great rest.

At 4pm I woke up to let the nurse know that while I had never given birth before I was pretty sure the kid was trying to come out. She did a quick check and said, "Yep, I'll call the doctor!"

Thats right, I went from 3-4cm to 10cm in two hours WHILE I SLEPT. sweet!

Dr. Elliott arrived, did a quick check and let me know that I was ready to start pushing. After a couple of practice pushes we were ready, and so was our little one! I pushed hard through three or four contractions and out came Little Man!

I'm not kidding, this was the shortest labor I've ever heard of, we started pushing at 5pm and he was born at 5:11pm.

So, without further ado, here he is!