one week

Today this little baby of mine is one week old. It has been the strangest and happiest week ever. I'm exhausted, I'm recovering from being run over by a truck (essentially) and my hormones are going crazy but this little boy is so worth everything and more. He is the cutest thing in the entire world and I just adore him.

Labor and delivery was super easy, for labor and delivery anyway. My water broke at 4:00 am on January 2 and I was dilated to a 3 when we got to the hospital. They put me on Pitocin at around 6:00 am. About 8:00 my contractions were strong enough and painful enough that I wanted the epidural so I got that around 8:30. The nurse checked me shortly after that and I was a 6. Just then, the rest of my water broke (I guess it can happen more than once if part of the amniotic sac remains intact initially? I don't know) and I dilated to a 10 within five minutes. My epidural wasn't quite kicked in and I felt enormous pressure (and pain) as the baby's head started descending rather quickly through my pelvis. My doctor wanted me to spend about an hour "resting and descending" without pushing so the baby's head could come down through the pelvis and birth canal on it's own, reducing trauma to both him and to me and allowing for more natural stretching. So we just hung out for about an hour and a half and I had stopped feeling anything and was rather giddy. It was kind of fun. The nurse came back and could see his head so she immediately called in the doctor, who got there about 20 minutes later. We started pushing. It took ten minutes and four contractions and he was out at 11:05 am. Not bad at all. They placed him on my stomach for me to dry off and it was so fantastic and surreal and emotional and he was screaming and I was crying and Sam was so excited and I'll never ever forget it. 

Thanks for all your congratulations, my dear family and friends and readers, both here and on facebook and through text and email. I love you all. And now I have a hungry baby to go feed.