Emmit's Birthday

We're on day 4 at home now, and everyone's doing well - as of today. It's been a bit of an interesting few days. Emmit is quite the easy baby so far, sleeping A LOT, and Ellie is adjusting well. I continue to feel better each day, but Colin has been the sick one in this house. On Wednesday while we were still in the hospital Colin started feeling sick. First thoughts were that it was food poisoning from some Mexican food, but that didn't seem to be it. On Thursday we were discharged from the hospital around 11:00 am, came home and he continued to feel miserable with stomach pain and not able to hold any food. About 7 hours after we got home, Colin was heading back to the hospital ER to get checked out. They ruled out appendicitis and pancreatitis thankfully, and called it a stomach bug. It's continued through the weekend, and today finally, he's feeling somewhat normal again. Certainly not the way he wanted to start our 'life with 2 kids', but thankfully we've had wonderful friends and family to help. So, I am just getting to the blog now...not that there's nothing to talk about, but my time has been a bit consumed otherwise.

So, I'll start with Emmit's birthday. We had a planned induction, and that's how it all started...here are a few of the days details...

7:00 am - We get checked into the hospital. For the next hour and a half it's paperwork and check-in. I told my nurse and Dr. that I wanted to have our little guy by 1:00 pm, and they kind of laughed at me. My time was working from my labor with Ellie - that was 7 hours start to finish, so I was thinking with an 8:00 am start, 5 hours would work for me. They were a bit skeptical of my logic, but I ended up being much closer than they were thinking! =)

8:30 am - Things finally got 'started'. Dr. applied a little tablet to kick-start my cervix.

10:00 am - Dr. breaks my water. Up until this point, the contractions were pretty mild, but after this, I was needing to focus on breathing.

12:00 pm - Time for pain relief. Mr. Emmit was positioned such a way that most of the labor pain was in my back so lying down was unbearable. The medicine ball was my best friend, but it was getting to a point where I wasn't quite stable on it anymore. The nurse gave me a small dose of meds through an IV to take the edge off, and it helped (VERY much so, we'll soon find out). Contractions were very close together so I was happy for the relief.

1:00 pm - Epidural in place, all I wanted to do was rest for a bit, but Emmit had other plans. The intense pressure that I remembered (more-so than contractions) was there...he was ready to make his arrival into this world. Things got a little chaotic here for a minute...nurses and Dr. were VERY surprised at my very quick progress so nothing in the room was ready. Dr. was called, and he got there about 15 minutes later.

1:20 pm - Time to push, getting some relief from the epi, but it's not even taken full effect yet.

1:49 pm - Emmit is born, 8 lbs, 2 oz, and 20 1/2 inches long. His delivery was easy, no complications. A little minor damage to Mama, but at least my pain meds were in effect for the aftermath.

Emmit is such an easy-going little guy. He's healthy, and has already gotten back up to birth weight. He's a great eater and sleeper...giving us good stretches of sleep at night. Ellie loves 'baby'...talking about him non-stop from morning 'til night. We need to work more on being 'gentle' as she gets a bit excited at times, but she's doing really well so far and seems to be adjusting to our new family member. Recovery for me has been much easier this time around. I think just knowing what to expect a bit more and not having as much time to even think about it have helped. All-in-all, we're all doing well...here are a few pictures from Emmit's first few hours...

Minutes old...



With a good set of lungs...



What just happened?



Clean after his first bath.



Emmit likes his hands in his face like Ellie did...he's a little thumb sucker already too.



Meeting big sister for the first time. Emmit isn't too thrilled, but Ellie is having fun.





I mentioned before how much they look alike...guess who's who?