Baby Boy

My mind is in full baby-brain mode (meaning it's rather absent at the moment), but I should post.

We have a baby boy! Had him two weeks ago. I will refer to him on the blog as Little One.

He was 2-and-a-half weeks early but he was very ready to be born. I was in labor for about 3 hours before he was born. Did it VBAC, all natural, too (didn't have time to take any pain killers even if I wanted to; I was at the hospital for only about half an hour before he was born. He was eager to see us face-to-face, I guess. :) ). The pain wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It hurt more with Baby Girl, being induced and all. I don't blame people at all for getting drugged up during labor, especially since they're usually in labor for much longer than I was.

Little One is healthy. He weighed over 8 lbs and had a full head of hair just like his sister. He was 20-something inches, average I think.

He has such a quiet personality; very patient, hardly ever cries. I can already see differences between him and his sister when she was this age. My babies are growing up so fast! *sob*

Mc only had 5 days for paternity leave but it was better than nothing, and my mom was here for two weeks to help us while I recovered and to help us adjust to going from one child to meeting two children's needs. It was nice having her here and I know Baby Girl will miss her. My dad was able to come down here this weekend and see his new grandson and spend time with all of us. Our two kids are my parents' only grandchildren so far, and my parents love them both. They were sad to leave.

This will be a difficult couple of months for me because Little One and Baby Girl have such different needs and Baby Girl is adjusting to having something else take up so much of Mommy's time and attention. It's been rough for her so far, and my mom could tell that Baby Girl misses me. She also does not have the understanding or muscle control to be gentle with him yet so I have to keep her away from him for the most part. She'll learn soon enough, I think.

I'm glad I got so much preparation done the weekend before he was born, because I was totally not expecting to go into labor so soon. I guess when those "nesting instincts" kick in it's a good idea to do something with all that energy.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Preparations Underway

Our second baby is due in 2-and-a-half weeks, which really means he or she could come at any time. Today Mc and I took a tour of the medical center where I'll be delivering the baby and I'm really happy with the place. They let the baby stay with the parents the whole time; no nursery! (the Level III NICU being the exception). And they put a sensor on the baby's umbilical cord so that if the baby gets too close to an exit the alarms will go off. It's sad that some babies get kidnapped from hospitals but it does happen, and I'm very glad to know that this place takes precautions to make sure that doesn't happen here. The rooms look comfortable and spacious, and it looks like they take good care of the families there.

Today was also a day for us to get things ready around the apartment. We reorganized our bedroom to make room for the rocking chair and bassinet, and we got out some of the little baby clothes and blankets that the baby will need when we bring it home. That's a nice thing about not knowing what Baby Girl was before she was born: all the newborn clothes and blankets we got were gender-neutral, and so with this baby we can use those right away and get gender-specific clothes later. ;-) We also got out the small car seat which we'll reinstall in the car tomorrow, and tomorrow we're also going to move things around in Baby Girl's room so it's more feng shui. :) We're also going to pack our hospital bags so when the baby decides it's ready to be born we just have to grab our bags and go (after calling someone to come watch Baby Girl for us).

This was a really productive day and I'm happy about what we've done. I feel better knowing that if the baby wanted to come this early we'd be ready for him/her. And don't worry, when the baby is born we'll start referring to it by its proper pronoun... we won't be like those crazy parents who keep the kid's sex a secret from almost everyone to prevent "gender stereotyping". So annoying.