Last night (or the night before...who knows at this point), in the middle of the night, Jeremy and I were both found leaning over the crib of our new little guy Ryan, watching to see if he was going to settle in or if he would start squirming again.
I waited anxiously, silently praying in my head that he'd stay asleep so that I could lay down as well, while Jeremy was probably just wondering how long he had to stand there before he could go back to bed. As we stood there the thought came into my head, "How come something so tiny rules us this way? And how come people choose this voluntarily?" It was a question of wonderment, not resentment. Because, as any parent will tell you, one look at that tiny little face, those tiny little hands, arms and legs, and that squishy little body makes it all worth it. Babies may be small but they contain an incredible ability to bring large amounts of love into the home. Even a home that's already filled with love.
See? Everything about this little man just screams "Love me!", and I'm happy to oblige.
Ryan, so far, seems to be quite the content little baby. He doesn't fuss much, mostly when he's gassy or hungry. We're still working on switching our nights and days around and sleeping in his crib at night, but we'll get there.
As you can see he is loved by his brother and sister, despite Alexis' declaration on his first day home that it was no fun to have "that baby" here because he doesn't do anything. Maybe I should have been clearer to them about what kind of baby we'd be bringing home. We didn't bring home the smiling, playful baby. We brought home one of the slug variety. But he's grown on them and they find ways to play with him anyway.
Tyler's been funny with his concerns over the things Ryan does. His biggest concern for awhile was the fact that Ryan was pooping in his diaper. He couldn't believe that was allowed! And pee too? He really won't get in trouble for that??
The first few days home are always hard to adjust, especially for me. I don't like just sitting home not feeling normal, and the kids were catching on to my mood. Today's been better, and hopefully each day will get continually better.
Quick birth summary: I waited all morning on Wednesday for the hospital to call and tell me what time to come in. They finally called around 1:30 and asked me to be there in a half hour. On the way I told Jeremy that I was going to guess, quite optimistically, that I'd be done with labor by 6:30 pm, only 4 1/2 hours from then. When I got there they had the pitocin in, and my water broke by 2:30. Contractions came on quickly, but I stuck with them as long as I could. I finally asked for my epidural a little after 4, and by the time he had it all in and done it was 4:45. At that point I was dilated to a 6 (when I came into the hospital I was a 3), and within 15 minutes I'd dilated to an 8. I was still feeling the contractions in my abdomen and lower back, though, and they were constant. I finally called my nurse in to see if there was anything they could do to ease the pain in my back. She checked me again and I was at a 10 (this was all within 25 minutes of having the epidural in). She declared the best pain relief for my back was to just get the baby out. They called my doctor, and had me push once while we were waiting, which made her nervous about how long it was taking the doctor to come. But he showed up, I pushed through one contraction and Ryan was here, at 5:23 pm. They laid him on my stomach and I had the biggest sense of deja vu because I thought he looked just like Tyler. Ryan has proved that my kids features don't have too many variations, but I figure that's okay because they are so cute. Why mess with a good thing?
Also, I was only in the hospital for 2 days, but somehow my kids both grew a foot while I was gone. Seriously, where did they get such long legs??
(She's scratching his back!)
