He's Heeeere....

The day finally came...the day I had been waiting so impatiently for.  Our baby was born on March 7 at 6:03 p.m.!  It ended in a c-section after a day of induced labor because the baby was breech.  I am sitting in the hospital and ready to go to sleep pretty soon so I am going to tell the whole story on another day.  I need time to recover from this hospital setting so I can properly sensor myself and not talk about disgusting birth and labor stuff that would gross most people out but that I am way to accustomed to right now! 

Wait...what?  You want to know the details, like the name?  Benjamin Dennis is his name.  Benjamin was just a name we liked, along with the nickname Ben.  Dennis is after Justin's dad.  Everyone says they like it (although no one says they don't like a kid's name to the kid's parents.  But, hey, what's not to like about it?  It is a nice boy's name!  That is one of our reasons for liking it...)

He weighed 8 pounds and 13 ounces and was 21 and 1/4 inches long.  They are very precise with measurments!  If anyone cares, the head circumference was 14 inches.  I didn't even know they measured that and I have no idea if it is small or large. 

A few photos...

Here I am, right after checking in before I changed into the hospital gown.  I hate to admit it, but I don't look much smaller now than I do in this photo!  I knew my stomach would not look like its old self again immediately (or ever) but the surgery swelling is not helping either. Yikes!  Sweatpants it is for as long as I feel like it!

Here is my first view of him.  That was a sad part of the c-section...I didn't get to see him right away (I could hear him cry when he came out).  Justin saw him quickly before they took him to get checked out.  He had to get checked pretty quick because there had been meconium released in the uterus.  If you don't know what meconium is, look it up!  It is one of those potentially too gross topics for the general public! 

Our first family photo!  I was a mess and still in shock that I had just undergone a c-section. 

Back in the room I finally got to hold him!  My hair is in that crazy half updo because the nurse had to do it for me and shove it under the surgical cap.  I was really upset when I heard the news about the breech position and everything happened so fast after that I didn't really process everything that was going on. 

There he is!  He is very cute, in my opinion!  I would know, right?   Sorry I didn't rotate it first.  The nurses all fuss over him and say he has large hands and feet and is very strong.   I think they find something to fuss over with every baby!  I bet they tell all parents that their boys are strong and their girls are beautiful.  His hands do look pretty big in this shot though. And he felt pretty strong when he accidentally punched me in the face while I was trying to situate him to feed him!  His toes are funny...he moves them like fingers!  The little shirt he is wearing is so cute...they dress the babies in mini hospital gowns that tie in the back! 

 I love this picture!  It looks like he is grinning although I know babies who are 3 hours old don't grin!  We don't have a good picture of it, but right away he would bend in half and pull his feet up by his head like he was still breech.  It was pretty funny. 

My parents arrived late on his birthday and stopped by to see their first grandchild!  Grandpa Tim!  

I like how he looks long in this picture!  It really depends on the angle...in some picture he looks like a little tiny bundle! 

Snuggled up!  He seems to like the swaddle, as most newborns do, but he also loves to get his hands free and he seems to like being unwrapped to move around as well. 

New bison hat!  The first hat he got was too small, and his other hat (the knit one he is wearing in some pictures which is also from the nursery) is pretty loose, so Justin and my parents went out and bought him this special hat that fits just right!

Grandma Cindy

Aunt Andrea

Nana Mary

Grandpa Larry

Another cute swaddle shot.  It is true that when it is your baby each photo is cuter than the last! 

If this had been a routine delivery without a c-section we would have been sent home this morning but since I need time to recover from the surgery we get an extra night here.  I am getting excited to get home because who likes to be in a hospital for 3 nights and 4 days even when it is a happy occasion and people are changing your baby's diaper for you?  I can't wait to dress him in his own cute clothes and get accustomed to daily life around our house.  It will be hard to adjust to doing everything without nurses.  I can't complain about  being able to sleep at night until someone quietly wheels him in for a feeding and then takes him away again after serving me some good pain meds and refilling my bottle with ice water! 

So that's all for now...more on what happened throughout the day Ben was born at a later day.