She Says… And Speaking Of Loveys

And speaking of Loveys, Owen did his first “big brother duty” by helping me choose a lovey for the new babe.

I learned a few lessons with Owen and his gross Lovey-sucking habits:

• Don’t get the kind that have big “feet” (fabric after the knot), which essentially makes a cloth pacifier
• Don’t get any with a looped tag that you will eventually want to cut and break your child’s heart
• Don’t get any that are white or partially white — they will not be white for very long
• Get 4 – we currently have 3, and sometimes have emergencies where the “laundry” one hasn’t been washed and the others are looking grody

With that in mind, I opted for the ubiquitous Angel Dear loveys. Everyone seems to have them and there must be a reason why. They come in a billion and one different designs, so if you choose a less-popular one, your kid hopefully won’t have to “share” at daycare (wouldn’t that be disconcerting, to see another kid cuddling YOUR Lovey?).

I have a few favorites (the spotted dog, zebra and raccoon, even though two of those three break my “no white” rule) but decided that this was a perfect job for the new big brother to feel like he was helping and picking something very special for his little bro. I gave Owen the choice between 3 different animals and he chose the gray raccoon. Without a doubt.

So the unborn is now the proud owner of 4 little gray raccoons, currently keeping his crib warm until he arrives.

On Mother’s Day Benjamin and I were putting together a new glider for the nursery and Owen was “helping”. I opened the Amazon box with the Loveys in it and Owen was immediately smitten. He quickly made them all kiss each other and then lifted up my shirt so they could kiss my belly/the baby. He talked in this sweet sing-songy voice and said, “These are your loveys, baby! I will give them to you when you cry!”. My eyes were welling up with tears as he gently, gently laid them down on the new ottoman, covered them with a blanket and shhhed us while he pretended to put them to sleep. He said he would do the same to the baby when he arrives.

I die.

That was worth every penny. I look forward to many more sweet moments with the new baby and his Lovey!

She Says… Enjoying the Now

I feel like I write so often about the hard parts about having a toddler. The annoying things. The behavioral challenges. The “problems”. So, this Mother’s Day, I just stopped thinking about the little things I want to change/correct/alter/fix, and the milestones I’m looking forward to in the future, and just enjoyed where we are right now.

We’re in a sweet, sweet spot right now. Owen is a doll.

Sure, we have our outbursts of “NO!” and tantrums and tears. But overall? Overall he is hilarious. And cooperative. And follows the rules. And eats and sleeps like a champ. He has opinions, but is beginning to understand compromise. He’s charming. And smart. The connections his little brain is making about the world surprise me every day. His voice melts me.

It was a sweet, sweet Mother’s Day. And the littlest one in my belly made it all the sweeter.

I know things are about to change a lot for our family. But I couldn’t be happier about the timing of the wee one joining our family and the little person Owen is turning out to be.

I am so thankful to be their mother.

She Says… A Little Scare and Getting Ready for You

My little acrobat/soccer player/drummer,

We had a little bit of excitement last Friday. Last week was a long, LONG week. Daddy was traveling and I was working days and nights and Owen was, well, being two years old. I was so ready to just put my feet up after I tucked Owen into his new(ish) big boy bed. But I couldn’t quite shake this feeling I was having. Like something wasn’t right.

I won’t go into too much detail about what I was experiencing, because when you get older you’ll read this letter and be all, “Eww, Mom. That’s so GROSS.”, but let’s just say I was worried that my amniotic fluid may have been, uhh, coming out before the right time. I called the doctor and she told me that the only way to diagnose such a thing was to have a test done, and although chances were low that that’s what was going on, I had to go immediately to the hospital to be sure. So, no time for putting my feet up. I had to call a babysitter (who thankfully lives across the street) and head to the hospital solo. Bottom line: It wasn’t that. After a couple hours of monitoring and a quick test, we were on our way back home. Phew.

Side note: After the nurse hooked you up to the monitor, she would come back every once in a while and marvel at just how active you were. I still can’t believe it’s possible, but you’re even stronger and more active than your brother was. You were kicking and flipping and totally showing off for her, forcing the monitor to make sounds like a whale underwater that were even louder than your heartbeat. She also showed me the spikes on the screen that showed your brain activity. Apparently you were showing signs of neural development a few weeks ahead of your age. Little smarty pants. Your movements are so forceful that I’ve been watching them from the outside for several weeks, and recently you’ve even jolted my whole body with your movements (especially in the middle of the night!). With Owen I remember a clear pattern of awake/sleeping times. With you, it seems you’re almost always awake and moving. I may very well have my hands full if you keep that up once you come out.

Our little excursion to the hospital may have been short and a false alarm, but do you know what it did for me? It completely changed the way I think about you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been thinking about you for 30+ weeks already. But something changed when I realized that if I was having the issue I thought I was having, I would have had to come to terms with the idea of meeting you much sooner than I expected. As in, you are A PERSON. And you are coming, whether we’re ready or not.

On the way home from the hospital my brain went into overdrive. You’re coming. In 10 weeks (or only 8 weeks if you’re on your brother’s time schedule… or sooner if you really want to catch me off guard…). While on some level I’ve been procrastinating because I know that babies really need very little when they come home from the hospital (really just diapers… and they even send you home from the hospital with some of those), now it’s time to kick it into high gear.

I’m sorry to say it, but your nursery has looked more like a storage closet than a bedroom for the last 20 weeks. A place where I dumped clothes and toys that Owen didn’t need anymore, but I knew we’d need again someday soon. Even the crib and changing table were just pushed in and left there when we switched Owen into his big boy bed.

But now, it’s time. Yesterday I washed 4 loads of teeny tiny baby laundry that have been packed in boxes in our attic since we moved. I nearly got high off of the smell of the baby detergent, completely overwhelmed by the memories of Owen’s early days. I cleaned baby seats and swings and carriers. I folded swaddles and receiving blankets. I opened boxes labeled “Baby Bottles” and unzipped my breast pump bag (which I promptly zipped back up again and tucked in the back of the closet — PTSD from the nursing issues I had with Owen) and flipped through books filled with advice about how to survive the first days, weeks, months. And I did it all thinking of you, as a little person, who we’re going to meet really, really soon.

I couldn’t be more excited. But can you make me a deal? Stay in there for at LEAST 8 more weeks so I can get even more ready for you. I know you don’t need me to sew curtains or stick little decals on the wall of your room, but it certainly would help me feel more calm and prepared for when you arrive. You do, however, need a carseat, and that’s still buried in the basement somewhere.

We’re getting there.

I’m so excited to meet you. And I can’t wait to learn all of the ways you will continue to surprise me, like you did last Friday. In the meantime, think about taking a nap or two, mmmkay little guy? I’m exhausted just by feeling you bounce around in there all day long.

I love you. More than you may ever really know.
Mommy

She Says… Babies

Thank you all for the happy thoughts you sent my way after last week’s whiny post. A weekend of sunshine did me good and I’m feeling like myself again.

On top of that, Owen’s little fever turned out to be nothing and he seems to have emerged from whatever it was that was causing him to act like a little monster last week. I don’t know if it was a bug he was fighting or lack of sleep due to being excited about his bed or what, but I’m just thankful it is over now. And, in its wake, it seems to have left an exceptionally sweet child whose capacity for playing by himself has doubled and whose behavior could not be better. Phew. I guess those kinds of developmental jumps are worth the painful week? I guess? I’m still not sure why they seem to be so pronounced with Owen, and only in retrospect do I see what caused all of that ridiculous fussing and terrible behavior.

Owen is super excited to be a big brother. He’ll often bring up things like, “I’m going to teach my baby brother to eat” or “I want to touch my baby brother’s toes” or “I’m going to bring him toys to hold” out of the blue. Recently this excitement has manifested itself as an obsession with babies.

He LOVES babies.

At school a few weeks ago, when the kids were still in their snowsuits, there was a little girl standing, stuck, crying on the playground. Owen’s teachers tell me they turned around and he was over next to her, patting her on the back and saying, “It’s ok. It’s ok.”. Sob.

And he’s always had a thing for hugging our friends’ babies (whether they liked it or not!).

When I arrived at school to pick Owen up on Friday, the mom of one of his friends was there with her newborn. The baby was crying in his stroller and as soon as he heard that little cry, Owen dropped his toy and came running from across the playground. He climbed up onto the stroller and started patting his foot, crooning, “S’ok. Why are you crying?” in this little sing-songy voice. He patted the baby’s head SO GENTLY (like, for real gently… which both amazed me and terrified me, because one can never tell when that gentle touch is going to turn not-so-gentle…) and dug the baby’s pacifier out of his blankets. Owen stuffed the paci in his mouth (backwards, but it didn’t seem to matter) while asking, “You want this?” over and over again.

I nearly cried. It was just about the sweetest thing. Thankfully the mother didn’t mind Owen’s little hands all over her baby (I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did!) and she praised him for being so gentle. I could barely tear Owen away to go home. He was in love.

Then, over the weekend we hung out with our friends who have a little guy who is about 15 months old. He toddled towards the parking lot (nowhere near the cars, but in that general direction) and Owen ran up to him and shouted, “Don’t walk! Cars won’t see you!” in an effort to keep him safe. Owen walked next to his little friend and put his arm around his shoulders. Buddies. Oh so sweet, until that arm-around-the-shoulders move made them both fall down, and Owen tried to pick him up by his head/neck. Clearly it came from a place of love and trying to help the kid up, but we have some lessons to learn about how to handle other kids. Gulp.

I’m beginning to see what kind of big brother Owen may be. Head over heels in love. Overly affectionate. Super gentle until he’s super NOT gentle. Protective.

We’ll have to watch him like a hawk.

Still, it makes my heart swell to watch him love on babies. I’ll have to remember this the next time I have to sign an incident report for him beating up a friend at school.

She Says… Recurring Themes

Owen is an affectionate kid. A SUPER affectionate kid. As a baby he loved to be held and was happiest smiling right up in someone’s (anyone’s?) face. Now he often asks for hugs and snuggles and loves to bury his face in my neck or hold my hand.

That’s adorable, right? About a year ago I posted about the dark side of being so affectionate. His… drum roll please... PROBLEM with loving his friends too much. Hugging them so much, for instance, that they fall to the ground and someone gets hurt. And that someone was never Owen. To date, it’s the only behavior he’s ever been reprimanded for (aside from the biting incident).

Around that time we talked a lot about gentle hands and so-and-so doesn’t want a hug right now and great hug, buddy, now let go… . It was a fine line because I certainly didn’t want to tell him not to hug his friends, but he did need to learn, uh, boundaries.

History repeats itself, my friends! Over the weekend we got to meet my high school friend’s 10 week old baby, Zoey. They had sent us a beautiful birth announcement with close-up pictures of her hands and feet that Owen had been talking about for weeks. As soon as she walked in the door, Owen wanted to see her hands and feet, and pushed the birth announcement in her face, insisting, “See, Zoey! See! ‘Dose are your feet!”. It was precious. We had a present to give them as well, as Owen thrust it into her hands and wanted her to open it. He adored her and wanted her to sit and play with him immediately.

Then came the hugging. The over-hugging.

Owen’s downfall.

As soon as he got close enough to touch her tiny little feet, Owen wanted to pull her in closer and closer and wouldn’t stop until he was holding her entirely on her own.

Don’t worry, we did a lot of refereeing and tried to remind him that she is just a baby and use gentle hands and don’t squeeze her face so tight.

(Thankfully she is a very sturdy little babe and played baby doll very well!)

Despite the fact that he won’t let go, this picture melts my heart. I think he’s trying to tell me he wants a little baby of his own.

I even got my strength training workout to try my hand at playing referee holding two kids at once. Practice!

The next day we had a playdate with a friend who has a younger brother. Similar to the Zoey loving, Owen would inch closer and closer to him throughout the day and go in for long, drawn-out hugs… to the ground. It’s like he slips into a comatose zone mid-hug wherein he can’t hear us telling him to stop. It’s like he can’t help himself. Slightly hilarious and slightly embarrassing.

We tried offering him a baby doll and letting him know that he could hug it as much as he wanted. And we’ve started counting down and saying things like, “Great hug! We’ll be all done in 3, 2, 1!”. And trying to appeal to his empathetic side with, “I don’t think so-and-so wants a hug right now. Do you want to come give ME a hug?”. None of the tactics are working particularly well, but we’re hoping he’ll hear the message in one way or another.

I can only imagine how he will be when we have a real, live baby brother or sister for him to squeeze all the time! Someday. Hopefully by that point he will have learned to control this irresistible desire to over-hug… but I’m guessing this is going to be a recurring theme for him.

She Says… Jessica Simpson Stole My Pose

Jessica Simpson posed naked in all her pregnant glory for the cover of Elle Magazine…

… just like I did a few weeks before Owen was born.

Photo credit: Katie Ring Images

Ok, let’s be honest here. Mine wasn’t going to make the cover of a fashion magazine. But still, seeing her photo this morning and reading her comments about how strong and empowered she felt reminded me of how amazing I felt when my big, pregnant, naked belly photo was taken. That pregnant belly is an awe-inspiring thing. Suddenly, nearly 40 pounds heavier than my normal self, I felt more beautiful than I ever had before.

And, shockingly (when you think about how gosh darn BIG it was), that belly is pretty much gone now. Not all the way, mind you. Hey, nobody’s perfect. But close enough.

Our bodies are astonishingly resilient.

The ease with which my body recovered (and I would argue even became stronger and healthier) post-baby makes me so excited about the opportunity to do it again someday.

SOMEDAY, PEOPLE. Don’t get ahead of yourselves.

She Says… Thanks, Sorry and Dinner

THANKS.

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful responses to yesterday’s post about postpartum birth control. You gave me some great things to think about.

For those who are interested, I am still on the fence about an IUD because of the things I listed (many of which were confirmed by commenters!). I’m still totally against the pill because of hormones and messing with my body’s natural cycles. It seems like I would be a perfect match for FAM (I’ve read TCOYF twice and temped for several cycles while I was working with a fertility specialist to get pregnant with Owen), except that while that may keep me from actually getting pregnant, it won’t keep me from worrying that I am pregnant because I would constantly be wondering if I messed up. Having unprotected sex for most of the month (the unfertile days) makes sense in theory, but accidents happen. Also, I have a 1 year old who gets me up at odd hours of the night sometimes, and I like to have a few drinks. Both of which messes up the tracking. Also, I don’t necessarily trust my body yet to be reliable enough for this method. So… that leaves me with condoms or a diaphragm. Or abstinence.

The most important lesson I learned from hearing all of your stories is that no matter WHAT option I choose, there is going to be a chance that I get pregnant anyway. Case in point: someone whose husband even got a vasectomy was worried she was pregnant! No method is 100% reliable except abstinence (this message brought to you by my 7th grade health class). But we’re not going there. So one way or another, we’re going to have to roll the dice.

That said, I have reached the point that I actually think about having and WANTING another baby. I think we want 3 years between Owen and his future brother or sister (and maybe other brothers/sisters beyond that), so we’re not quite there yet. But I have started to imagine what life will be like with two little munchkins, and I kind of like what I’m seeing. When Owen was first born I remember wondering if I would ever have room in my heart for another baby. If I could ever get to the point where I was ready to share him, and myself, with someone else in that way. Little by little, that answer is becoming yes.

Don’t get too excited. Not QUITE yet.

SORRY.

Sorry for not putting a disclaimer on yesterday’s post like “If you don’t want to read about my sex life, STOP READING NOW.” Apparently there are some people (ahem, Owen’s grandparents) who come here to read about what cute thing Owen is doing these days, and yesterday they got slammed with some info they probably wish they’d never read. Ooops. Disclaimer next time. Promise.

DINNER.

You can tell a lot about someone by the blogs they read. My first foray into blog reading was with healthy living blogs. I was working on getting into the best shape of my life, knowing that I was going to try to get pregnant, and I was looking for some inspiration for healthy recipes, workout ideas, etc. When I was trying to conceive (TTC), my blogroll was filled with others trying to conceive. Slowly some of the TTC blogs turned to Mom Blogs, and the demographics of my Google Reader changed again. I expanded into nursery design blogs to get ideas for Owen’s room. Since we bought the house I’ve added even more design blogs. And now I feel like I’ve come full circle and I’ve started adding food blogs back into my repertoire.

I love the inspiration. I see something on a food blog, and whether I save the exact recipe or not, the ideas, the flavors, the pictures are etched into my brain. When I’m at the grocery store I dig into the recesses of my memory. Someone posted a quinoa salad. What did it have in it? What about if I went with beans… I think I’ve seen one with black beans and peppers and mmmm cilantro and maybe some fresh lime juice, yes, I can just wing it from here… And then all of a sudden I have dinner.

So I have an idea. I’m thinking of posting my dinner ideas for those who need a little inspiration. I can’t promise new, original recipes or fancy dancy pictures (because, let’s be honest, I’m doing about the most I can do just to get a single blog post out every day!). But maybe at the end of each post, I can write what we had for dinner last night or something. I’ll link to recipes if I used one.

Would you be into that? Or should I leave the food blogging to the food bloggers?

She Says… Decisions, Decisions

At my 6 week checkup with my OB after Owen was born, I remember her asking me what kind of birth control we were planning on using. Ha! Birth control! I thought at the time. How ironic. I couldn’t even GET pregnant without the help of two doctors, several cycles of monitoring, lots of needle sticks and ultrasounds and drugs, so I wasn’t really worried about an “oops baby”, thankyouverymuch. And shouldn’t someone who struggled with infertility be overjoyed with a freebie, after all of that work?

Besides. I was NOT one of those women chomping at the bit to, uhh, how shall I put this delicately… get back on that horse right away.

So we I put off the decision entirely.

As you know, it took another 10 months for my period to even come back, and in that time we were using the dreaded condom method. You know, umm, most of the time. Bottom line? We were being REALLY stupid since we were/are not ready to have a sibling for Owen yet. But can you blame us? Condoms are a real buzzkill!

But something scary happened at the end of last week. After three relatively normal cycles, I was late. I hadn’t been writing any dates down because I’m trying to be totally laid back and let my body do its thing for now… but I knew I was late. The first day I chalked it up to not counting correctly. The second day I blamed it on stress. The third day my stomach was upset all day thinking about the possibility. I finally mentioned it to Benjamin because I couldn’t think about anything else. Then HE was stressed too. The fourth day we started to have some very serious conversations about the future of our family — and then stopped, because really, that was a bit premature. I did everything I could to “bring on” my period. I wore white pants. I left the house without a tampon. I told myself I would take a pregnancy test on Saturday morning. Then finally, thankfully as soon as I got to work on Friday, it came. Almost a full week late. Hence no blog post on Friday. Too many thoughts to make sense of.

I learned a few very important lessons:
1. We need to figure out a better form of birth control. I can’t take that kind of stress!
2. I have kind of long cycles, so I shouldn’t be counting 28 days like a normal human being. I should start writing this stuff down.
3. It’s ok to not be ready for another baby yet, even if it was excruciatingly hard to conceive Owen.

I am pretty much convinced at this point that my infertility was caused by using birth control pills. I essentially stopped my body from ovulating for a decade, and then expected it to start right back up again as soon as I stopped taking those little pills. Obviously that didn’t go so well. As a result, I’m 100% unwilling to put hormones back into my body again. I refuse to change what is happening naturally. I am so, so thankful that things appear to be in working order again and I will do just about anything to keep them that way. Hence the condom method. But that severely limits the birth control options available to me!

The other option I’m considering is ParaGard (copper IUD that doesn’t contain hormones). Reasons I’m scared about this method?
1. I know someone who has gotten pregnant on an IUD. It’s super unlikely, but scary nonetheless.
2. Insertion can hurt. The pamphlets say that after you’ve had a vaginal delivery, insertion shouldn’t hurt at all, but I’ve heard testimony otherwise.
3. Complications like the device perforating my uterus and requiring a hysterectomy.
4. Feeling it poking me during sex. Or Benjamin feeling it poking HIM during sex. Eww.

It’s time for a little field research. What birth control method did you choose post-partum? How do you feel about that decision?

She Says… On My First Mother’s Day

I guess you could say my first mother’s day as a mother was last year, when Owen was tucked safely inside my stretched, burgeoning belly, throwing off my balance as he, basketball-like as he was, jutted out in front of my small frame.

I looked like this.

But now that he’s out of that safe little bubble I can tell you: I may have been a mother then, but I didn’t really know what it meant to be a mother until now. It’s not a lesson I learned in a flash, as soon as Owen wriggled out of my body and into the world. It has been a slow, gradual, almost unnoticeable process that has filled up and filled in places within me that I didn’t even know were empty throughout the last 9 months.

I am a different person than I was before Owen was born. A better person. A more understanding and more thoughtful person. A simpler person who stops working so hard to check things off my to do list and instead stops to enjoy and savor every little teeny tiny moment with my ever-changing baby. A gentler person who can cuddle and rock and pat and hold long after my arms are tired or my legs want to collapse. A more patient person. A more present person, adept at focusing 100% on what I’m doing at a given moment, whether it’s work or playing or blogging or cooking, and not thinking about what I’m going to do next. A more organized person, though I didn’t think that was possible (oh she of the bulleted to do lists and pre-packed lunches), who can now organize an entire family without even thinking.

As a mother, I have become more than I ever thought I could be.

When I say I am a mother, especially a work-outside-the-home mother, people sometimes say things like, “The hardest job you’ll ever do!” or “That must be tough”. I guess it is, sometimes. But honestly? Most of the time? Most of the time it feels like the most amazing privilege I’ve ever been given. And while it’s not always perfect, and not always fun, I can’t help but think that there’s no other place I’d rather be.

It feels like I have finally come into the person I always wanted to be. As Owen’s Mom, I am more me than I have ever been before.

Happy Mother’s Day… to me.

She Says… Labor

For those who missed it, here’s Part 1 of my labor story. Now on to Part 2…

Ok so when I last left you, I had progressed to 9cm by 9:00am. “Right on schedule” as the doctor said. As with so much of my pregnancy, everything happened like clockwork according to what the textbooks say. At this point I was beginning to feel like my epidural was wearing off faster than I wanted it too. I found myself saying things like, “Umm, can we top this off or something? We’re getting to the most painful part and I can feel EVERYTHING!”. Amazing how things went from “I’m not sure I even want an epidural” to “Give me ANOTHER epidural”. Ha. Anyway, I was definitely regaining feeling in my middle and legs, and could feel a lot of pressure and deep contractions coming very quickly. They felt different than the earlier contractions, probably because now the baby’s head was spreading my hips wide open.

I also started to experience some really horrendous back pain. My lower back felt like someone was sticking knives in me. It was a constant, throbbing pain that overshadowed the contractions and the hip stretching and made me really unfocused. The doctors explained to me that I had two options at this point:

1. Have the anesthesiologist come back and perhaps increase my epidural. The downside of this was that it would most likely prolong my labor/pushing because I wouldn’t be able to feel the urge to push. The upside was, of course, that the back pain could be reduced so I could concentrate.
2. We could start pushing, despite the overwhelming feeling of back pain. The nurse said sometimes the opposing pressure of pushing eases the back pain, and since I had a lot of sensation, I would probably be a very strong pusher if we started now.

I wish I could say I easily answered, “Let’s start pushing!”. But I didn’t. The back pain felt like it was killing me. And it took my focus and clouded my judgment. I said I wanted more epidural.

But then the doctor checked me, and she said “Give me one push and we’ll see how close you are to meeting your baby”. The nurse gave me instructions, I took a deep breath, and pushed. Her eyes lit up and she said, “Kate, the baby’s head is right here. I can see tons of black hair!”. That was all the encouragement I needed. I was ready to push. He was SO CLOSE.

So close, yet so far away. I pushed for 2 hours! On tv it looks like it happens in 5 minutes. But, miraculously, the back pain was gone and my focus was 100% on meeting my little man. Turns out he was face up (just like I suspected in the last two weeks), and his head was angled in my pelvis in such a way that he was rocking back and forth without making a ton of progress on each push. We tried various positions (pushing on my side, pushing with one leg up in the air, pushing on my back at different angles, etc.). The nurse was so encouraging and kept telling me exactly what I needed to hear to get from one push to the next. Little by little, we were making progress. Unfortunately that’s when we had a little scare. We had been pushing for awhile and the baby was getting a little stressed. His heart rate would drop every time I pushed. The beeping monitor would slow and everyone would get tense. The nurse decided she needed to put an internal monitor on him to watch the heart rate. Unfortunately I remembered from childbirth class that those probes are literally screwed into the baby’s head! Poor thing! But we all knew it was an important thing to keep an eye on. After awhile the doctor gave me a bit of an ultimatum — if the heart rate kept dropping and my pushing wasn’t strong enough to get him out soon, we may have to do this a different way. She said it was not an emergency, but I really needed to focus on my pushing and get him moving. That got my attention.

Anyway, after a bit more pushing and a lot of grunting and few screams, I heard the doctor say, “Here he comes! Stop pushing.” Those are some beautiful words to hear! He spun around right at the last second and came out just like he was supposed to. The umbilical cord was wrapped around him from all that spinning, so the doc had to cut it as soon as the baby popped out (sorry, Benjamin!). He was very purple and a bit stunned from the long journey and didn’t cry right away. I could see in Benjamin’s teary eyes that he was terrified. He kept saying, “Is he ok? Is he ok?”. Then just a few seconds later, I heard the baby’s little cry. I’ve never heard anything sweeter. Since he was looking a little floppy and there were some questions about his heart rate, they couldn’t put him on my chest right away. Although I had been so looking forward to that moment of holding him right after he came out, nothing mattered more than making sure he was ok. So the doctors took him to a little table in the corner of the room and cleaned him, measured him, etc. Benjamin just stood by his side and cried and cried and cried.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion then. As they cleaned him I kept asking, “How much does he weigh? Is he breathing ok? Is he cute? 10 fingers and 10 toes?”. It seemed like it took forever to deliver the placenta… that I was not prepared for. It was very uncomfortable to push it out after I thought I could stop pushing, and I had to get a few stitches for a little tear. Finally Benjamin came to my bedside with our little bundle. We just stared and cried and stared and cried. What an unbelievable experience. And what a prize we got at the end.

Pictures and more details to come later, but now it’s time to nurse (again!). My breaks are short but I’ll be back with another update soon. I can’t thank you all enough for your thoughts and comments. We are SO thrilled to be able to share this special time with you.