Hospital - Day 1

After the doc stitched me all up, I was moved to recovery down the hall where I met up with Joel and my new baby boy.  I was soooo thirsty the first thing I did was ask for a drink of water!  Then we worked on getting baby "hooked up" to get a drink too.  He did ok during his first try at breast feeding but he didn't latch on quite as quickly as his sister.

I'm in love already at this point!

Joel and baby were with me for quite a long time in recovery.  It seemed like last time, they let me try to breastfeed Lily and then they whisked her off immediately to the nursery to be cleaned up.  This time, they let me dictate when I was ready for my baby to be separated from me.  That was a nice change.

All the grandparents were very excited to meet their new grandson as he was wheeled out of recovery!

Proud Grandparents!

Sorry folks....no name picked out.

I had to spend a little more time in recovery.  I had to show I could move my legs and I had to stop requesting morphine for at least 15 minutes.  It's amazing how motivated you can be to lay off the drugs and deal with the pain if it means you get to see your baby again sooner!

Then I was reunited with my baby!

Then it was Meme's turn to get her hands on the little guy!  Papaw's a little too skittish with the babies on their first days of life.  He wasn't ready to hold him yet.

And about that time, Mom comes in with Lily who she just picked up from daycare!

Tentatively touching baby brother

Kisses for Mama

Kisses for Baby Brud-her

Lily holding her baby brother for the first time

Around this time, the nurses are fluttering in an out checking on me and checking on the baby.  My poor little boy is making this very sad whimpering, whining, grunting sound and has been every since he came out of the womb.  Two or three different nurses said, "I really don't like the sound that he's making."  So they whisk him off to the nursery to be checked out by the doctor on call.

Honestly, I wasn't too worried.  This same thing happened with Lily, only it was two days after she was born instead of the day she was born.  Baby boy was having a little bit of a hard time catching his breath.  This is apparently very common in big babies who are not squeezed through the birth canal.  There is excess fluid in their lungs that doesn't get pushed out and it causes them to labor a little when breathing.  While that doesn't sound like great news, I guess I remained calm because I had been through it before.  But I did make sure to voice my opinion VERY LOUD to EVERYONE who would listen, that under no certain terms was my child to be given a bottle in lieu of breastfeeding without my being consulted first (this happened with Lily). 

So it was hard to not see my baby for most of the rest of the day while he was being observed but I busied myself with talking with family and watching Lily open her "big sister" presents!

I hope she doesn't think she always gets a present on her brother's brithday!

Dora!  Could we get her anything else?

We also talked with the grandparents and my sisters about name choices.  We needed some help or outside input or reactions or something.  And by "we," mostly, I mean me.  Joel was over it.  He wanted to pick a name and just move on already.  I just couldn't get there yet with what I thought the right name should be.  We didn't come to any conclusions, but at least I had some other inputs to bounce around in my brain.

Finally, later that evening, they brought my precious boy back to me and we were able to get a family photo on baby's birthday!

I'm looking a little worse for wear at this point in the day and Lily was in major meltdown mode from being over tired, but I was determined to get this picture!

Kisses

Hugs.  Lily was very sweet toward her baby brother!  We'll see how long this lasts!