better late than never!

Thank you all for the kind words and congratulations on our new little boy!  I'm finally able to sit down and write his birth story.

We were induced on Monday, 12/29, at 40 weeks.  I was not in labor that morning, so I actually put on makeup and curled my hair a little bit. Since I chopped off my curls, I couldn't use my go-to messy bun or pony tail.  Plus, who knew when I'd have any time to curl my hair again!?

Our nurses were wonderful. I was 3 cm when we got to the hospital (that explains the terrible contractions I had intermittently the entire weekend before!).  I really wanted to feel my labor, so I waited for a while to get my epidural.  The epidural was honestly the worst part!  Pitocin started at 6:30 am, I was 3-4 cm until about 11 am when things picked up.  Somewhere in there I got the epidural, and it took 20 minutes to kick in which was pretty painful.  After that, I felt great. Relaxed, chatted with Sparky, and tried to enjoy the experience.  Around 11:30, Sparky got back from eating lunch and my favorite nurse checked my status.

To our utter shock, I was quickly progressing...from 6-8 cm! At 12:45, I was ready to push and just waiting on the dr.  Dr. got there, and 2 pushes later, Cameron Louis was born at 1:15pm.  Lots of laughter because he pretty much shot out as soon as I pushed!  My dr. thinks it's hysterical that I'm such a good pusher.  As soon as they put him on my chest, I just knew he was smaller than his brother. 7 pounds, 8 ounces, 20 inches long, so a long skinny baby with blue eyes and shockingly dark hair!

Here's the craziest part of this whole thing: we did skin to skin immediately this time, before the cord was even cut.  It was amazing. He nursed immediately for about 40 minutes.  (and now the crazy part) I feel that I immediately bonded with C.  It took me at least 2 weeks to bond with D...do you think this could be the skin to skin connection? I don't know, but it's been amazing.

Baby C nurses like a champ and wants to eat all the time! My recovery has been very quick as I only had a slight tear from pushing him out too quickly.  Big brother is slowly adjusting, but the tantrums have picked up and we have a little night waking from him too.  He loves to see the baby and kiss the baby, but he definitely craves his one on one attention from me, which is ok.

We had our first stretch of 4 hour sleep last night which was great! After that, baby C was up every hour or so, but I'll take one good stretch.  He's getting better about sleeping when he's not curled up on someone's chest. As much as I love baby cuddles, I want to make sure baby C can sleep in his bassinet too!

I guess that's it for now. Sparky goes back to work on Monday...and then real life will set in I'm sure.

Thanks again for the support from this community.  I never, ever thought we would be this blessed. The road hasn't always been easy and I know that it won't always be as easy as wearing a newborn on my chest while I type this blog. But today, this is pretty perfect.