Happy Coming to Earth day!

Yay! A New Baby! And this time it's mine!

I have lots of pictures posted on facebook so I'll only put a few up here.

Delivery

My water broke at 8:00 PM on Sunday, August 29th. All I could think of to say was, "Oops." as I stared down at the growing puddle of water on my kitchen floor and thought about my September 13 due date and all of the baby stuff I still hadn't bought. Casey did a good job only being minorly hysterical while we packed the rest of the stuff we needed into our hospital bags and headed up to St. Marks Hospital. I wish we had been able to finish our Hypnobabies class (we had 2 sessions left) because the extra practice probably would have helped me though the following 29 hours of labor.

I actually did pretty well with the labor- I was singing show tunes in between waves around noon on Monday, but around 7:00 PM, with no rest, food and minimal water in my system I was exhausted. My waves were off the charts strong and very close together. I had no reserves left to deal with the strong contractions and I hollered for an epidural. It took me a long time to actually let the guy stick it in me because I was so close to finishing the birth naturally like I wanted to, but I was very grateful for it. It allowed me to sleep for a half an hour and then I woke up and I think it must have been wearing off because I could feel my waves again and the incontrollable urge to GET THAT BABY THE HECK OUT OF ME.

After an hour of pushing, at 12:45 AM Tuesday, the doctor finally stuck his fingers under Sander's armpits and pulled him out accompanied by a HUGE sigh of relief from me. It was all worth it as soon as they put that beautiful, perfect little boy up onto my chest. He was so perfect and gorgeous and completely surreal. It seemed like after the 9 months and 29 hours of labor that he would never be a person outside of me. I got to hold him for a really long time afterwards which provided a good distraction from the doctor stitching me up- he was not gentle...

About Sander

Sander had jaundice so we didn't get to leave the hospital until Thursday morning. We had some bilibeds delivered to our house and kept him under those for awhile (which he hated) but the jaundice went down and we are doing awesome now.

Sander is the sweetest, most chill baby I have ever seen. He is such a little angel and so easy to be with- I find it really hard to put him down for naps while I'm awake during the day. <3

He has a webbed toe on his right foot which he inherited from his daddy.

He also has a less apparent webbed toe on his left foot that looks like the webbed toe his Grandma Zaugg has on both feet.

His right ear also doesn't seem to have any space underneath the rim at the top. It's just plastered down with a line that makes you think there is space underneath but when you try to pull it up you discover that it is an optical illusion- no space, sealed up tight. I think it might still pop out as he plumps up but Casey has informed me that I'm delusional.

Other than those eccentricities everything else seems to be perfect. He looks just like his daddy but I think the older he gets the more Montrose I can see in his face. His most noticable features are his quizzical brow and pursed lips. I can already tell that he is skeptical of everything he sees and is content to just sit back and observe his world. Aside from being skeptical though, he is the sweetest cuddle-bug I could ever ask for. It's a good thing too- hopefully he won't mind how much his mom loves on him as he gets older (well, until he becomes a teenager at least. I'm not completely delusional.)

Never thought I could love someone so much that I wouldn't mind getting up every couple of hours during the night and interrupting my sleep. I'm excited to see how he grows and develops and I'm particularly excited for when he smiles his goofy smile at me with his eyes open and not just while he's asleep after he farts. Oh man, that kid makes me laugh so much already.

I'm excited to experience his discoveries, family holidays and individual growth with him over the years. Don't get me wrong though- I'm not wishing away this cuddly lump stage at all. I'm going to try to enjoy every part of each unique stage he goes though. It only happens once.