On childbirth...and Stephen Gabriel

1. It's been 9 days since the arrival of our precious little bundle. It's amazing how much love I feel for this little being. I still look at him sometimes and am in awe he's ours.

2. I'm looking forward to sharing Stephen Gabriel's birth story, but I need a little time to let the craziness of it all wear off. I have to admit that giving birth was nothing like I thought. Ina May's book was wonderful and all, but I felt sort of betrayed in a way...it was all just so much more painful than I thought it would be. I had so many (good) reasons that I didn't want an epidural, but after doing it without my perspective has maybe changed a little. But I better not share too much so that I can leave you in suspense for his birth story...

3. My hemoglobin had a nice drop from 12.5 when I arrived to the hospital around midnight to 8.5 after I delivered our little man. I shudder to think what it was the following day since physiologically it would have continued to drop, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out. Stephen was disenchanted with sleeping in a recliner and I was disenchanted with sleeping in a hospital bed along with all of the middle-of-the-night vitals checks. I full-on passed out the afternoon after I delivered (waking up via some ammonia salts to about 6 people surrounding me in the bathroom...childbirth certainly does a number on modesty ha) so the nurses were not too keen on me leaving, but my doctors agreed to let me leave a day early. I think this was pretty much only because I'm a doctor (albeit a super fresh one) but I happily took it.

4. Our little man weighed only 6 lbs 11 oz when he was born....so much for my concerns about birthing a 9 lb baby due to my post-term status. I actually didn't believe that he was that little and asked the nurse to weigh him again, but 6 lbs 11 oz it was. He was absolutely swimming in the 0-3 month sleepers I brought to the hospital (lesson learned, should've brought at least one newborn outfit) and required preemie diapers for his first few days of life. I never felt like I got super enormous at the end of pregnancy and I knew that Stephen Jr. had always measured a tad on the small side, but I really thought he would be pushing 8 lbs at 40 wks 5 days. He actually just barely met the criteria for small for gestational age, which made me super concerned (I wondered if being so sick with asthma/the flu in January played a role) but the pediatrician wasn't worried at all (and Stephen's brother was only 6 lbs 13 oz at term so maybe it's his genetics). The little man weighed only 6 lbs 3 oz at his first check up but then proceeded to put on a whopping 13 oz over the next week for a one week weigh-in at 7 lbs. Grow baby grow!

5. I'm feeling sort of overwhelmed about moving with a two week old. Fortunately my mom and a couple of my sisters are coming with us to help for the first week. The little man will be only 3 weeks old when I have to leave him for orientation, but I'm taking things one day at a time and happy that I'll be on maternity leave in July.

6. We are having Stephen Gabriel baptized tonight. We had the choice of either baptizing him this weekend or waiting until the end of July, when we come back here for my brother's wedding. Stephen and I did some reading about the sacrament (and also talked to our wonderful Catholic pediatrician) and our conclusion was that the sooner the better to give our little guy the graces of the sacrament.

7. And lastly, some picture updates from my instagram.

First time in the rock n' play - holding on for dear life (favorite picture ever).

So peaceful. He always has his hands up by his face when he's sleeping, just like he did inside of me. Also, the Aden and Anais blankets are hands down the.best.

We're still trying to decide if he'll have red hair like his daddy - but so far it's looking good.

So happy to see his face filling out!

First time using the Ergo swaddle carrier (it only took us 30 minutes and two videos to get the carrier on, and it's clearly only on half right) and baby's first hike (we went to the same place we walked when my water broke - details later). 

Linking up with Jen.

Stay tuned for some guest posts in the coming weeks from some amazing mom blogger friends.