Me beforehand

Then, the family arrived

Clark didn’t want to share the baby. He was very sweet and very soft with him.

He did, however, want to “share” my breakfast.

Welcome, Maxwell Gideon!

We’ve got some great ones, but I wanted to talk a little bit before taking the time to do the photo thing.

Firstly, thanks for all the well wishes. It’s so nice to have the best of both worlds, a nice, quiet and calm hospital room, and lots and lots of friends to share the birth with!

I need to go back and read emails. I’ve been pretty much off the computer this whole time, Nate has read emails and comments aloud to me while I’ve been encumbered by medical equipment, staff, baby, and fatigue.

I don’t think Nate mentioned this, but baby came out face up. That’s probably why it was so hard getting him out. Apparently, it wasn’t hard getting him out. The nurse and doctor told me I only pushed for 16 minutes, but it felt hard to ME!!! And certainly harder than my other babies. I don’t know how women that push for hours hold up. It’s exhausting. And painful. And what’s up with the new epidural medicine that doesn’t make all the pain go away??? I still had some pain with Clark’s delivery, and this epidural (it was horrible. I swear it was the worst one), took over 30 minutes to get as good as it got. And the point of exit was never pain free.

I will not deny that it was way better than feeling all of labor though, but I’m glad I waited as long as I did because I really have to be in serious pain to make that whole process worth it.

So, anyway, he came out face up. That’s probably why it took so long for labor to progress. He wasn’t positioned well. Also, the cord was wrapped around his neck in such a way that it really looked like it was holding him back. The doctor exclaimed, “cord!!!” and unhooked it from his neck as soon as he came out. His heart rate was dropping quite a bit during the contractions once he was low in my pelvis. They had me shifting from side to side to see if we could help him out.

I’m SO happy I didn’t have any back labor or tearing. I have a sister-in-law whose babies all come out face up, and her back labor is excruciating.

Baby looked JUST like Clark when he came out, which wasn’t going to help with the naming problem at all, however this morning, he’s changed. We are pretty sure we’ve got a first name picked out. Really struggling with the middle name.

Something interesting… there was a male nursing student, about my age that spent the day with us, observing and assisting. He came in a few hours into things, and once he did, Nate’s sense of displacement/discomfort totally evaporated and he was able to relax and be himself. It was really nice. I don’t exactly understand why, but having another guy in there Nate could joke around with and talk to made the day much more pleasant for him, and having him more at ease helped me to relax also.

We didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Well, I didn’t anyway. He was super hungry and if he wasn’t eating, he had to be laying on me to sleep. The hospital bassinet was a no-go.

I am very excited to go home.

That’s all I can think of right now. I’ll post this then get to the pictures. Check back soon.