I am working on a labor story blog post in between naps and feedings and diaper changes but in the meantime, here's a post full of pictures and some commentary from Owen's first week outside of my body. I plan to continue these type of posts throughout our journey of his life, but they may eventually become more monthly. However, this is our first kid together so for a while at least, we'll try to get something up weekly. Enjoy!
Waking up after the first night at home (if you can call it a "night" as we didn't get home and in bed until 5am). Bah! Grumpy face, above...funny as we saw this face on one of the ultrasounds. He was pretty cute sleeping that night as he was still trying to get the lungs to work. We had lots of little noises. He also started screaming before he was fully out of the birth canal so we had a big spit up session on this morning from all the amniotic fluid he'd swallowed. Luckily, we were warned otherwise it might have been a bit alarming.
Owen is pretty hit or miss on swaddling. He likes it sometimes, other times he seems to care less. The above is a picture from his first full day home (our anniversary) while Justin was cooking dinner for me. It wasn't how we planned to celebrate a year...but, it was better.
On the first full night at home, we had a rough night. This is what he looked like most of the night. SCREAMING baby (related: our neighbors hate us). This is pretty common 24 hours after birth as the baby realizes that his world was rocked and he is no longer in the place he called home for 9+ months.
We did as much as we could to soothe him, and eventually he crashed. As did we.
Ahh....
There was lots of sleeping going on the day after that night:
Dad even got a nap too (awkward looking...but, hey, when you don't sleep at all, you can sleep anywhere).
Prior to family naptime, the midwives came over for the 24 hour check in to see how Owen was doing and how I was doing. Owen looked great. He weighed in at 7.8 pounds so had lost about the approximate amount of birth weight that most babies lose. They were very pleased with how we both were doing and since this was a different midwife than the one who delivered Owen, they told us how many great things they had heard about the birth. It was pretty cool and I feel very lucky to have had a relatively easy birth and a birth that exceeded even my wildest expectations. They were happy with how I was doing too and since I had had such minimal bleeding, there was really no issues with me.
I basically was on serious bed rest for most of the first week at home, especially the first few days...this is typical of natural births, really any birth. I could barely walk up my stairs as my hoo hoo was a train wreck and my ta tas were slowly being destroyed by sucking. If I wasn't sitting on my butt, I was taking sitz baths to soothe my poor little nether region (related: sneezing post birth and moving from sitting to standing? Pretty much raw torture). I had a bit of tearing but nothing major and no stitches required but I think that after pushing out an 8 pound turtle in only 25 minutes (the majority of first time moms push 2-4 hours), anyone would be sore. SO, the majority of the week was spent like the above picture- lots of cuddles (and also lots of pictures, see following:)
Also, we had several visitors this week. We captured pictures of one visit- we had our friends Jen and Cam over and their 2 week old daughter, Olivia...otherwise known as Owen's first girlfriend. Although, Owen looks upset in the above picture...so maybe he is worried she won't like him. She seems a little bit disinterested so I guess this was his first broken heart. Poor guy.
We also got to see times of the night that we haven't seen in YEARS. 3:50am above and Owen was WIDE awake. Yippee! At least he is cute.
On Friday we (spontaneously) decided to take our first road trip to Leavenworth to get the big boys for the weekend. Owen did great in the car. He started to get fussy about 5 minutes before we got to Leavenworth (it turned into a 2+ hour drive as we hit traffic leaving Seattle) but otherwise did great. He was a little thrown off by the whole being in the car thing so didn't nurse very well while we were over there so on the way back he was a little more fussy but really he did great considering.
A shot of the gorgeous mountains on the way over. I was SO glad to get out of the house!
And a shot of poppy and Owen one morning... and about 2.5 seconds later, we had to change his outfit. Let me just say: in the contest of Owen's bodily functions versus mom, I am SORELY losing. I keep forgetting to tuck his little pee pee down so I have ruined a ZILLION outfits because the pee shoots out of his diaper. And one day I was changing a dirty diaper only to get projectile pooped on AND peed on! Welcome to parenthood!
This post is sort of like my brain lately- scattered! Prior to our Leavenworth trip, we got out of the house for about an hour on Wednesday. We took a trip to babies r us to buy a swing for the little man. Again, I was SO happy to go anywhere but after walking around for about 20 minutes, I was ready to be home to sit on my butt again. Picture above of Owen (dressed by dad) ready to go.
And after we got back, Justin putting together the swing.
And the little man swinging away... he was a fan! I'm glad we waited to get it though once we knew he liked the swinging motion, otherwise, that would have been a pain in the butt to build and then not use. The thing is freaking HUGE. The gear that comes along with babies is sort of ridiculous.
And a few more photos because I am biased and think this kid is pretty cute (also- the next two are evidence of how big his hands and feet are...we are taking bets on if he will be bigger than dad. We think there's a good shot):
Justin took one picture of Owen and I one morning in bed just after I'd nursed him. This is clearly the PG shot but the other pictures Justin took (which are R rated and not blog appropriate) are funny because it captures us both in our diapers- Owen clearly in his and me in mine. I was totally rocking the depends all last week. Seriously, I can't believe I knocked them. They were AMAZING and so much easier than dealing with pads and underwear especially when I could barely move my legs to get anything on them. I love the above picture above though, despite my scary looking hair. What a sweet little boy.
