We arrived home with Nolan around 10pm on Tuesday night.  It would have been earlier, but the hospital staff was worried about the amount of blood I had lost during delivery.  Basically, I had about 11 pints when I came into the hospital, and 7 pints after delivery.  Anything below 7, and they recommend a blood transfusion   I fainted in the bathroom the first time they got me out of bed after delivery, so they were worried.  But my blood pressure was fine, so they let us go.

We are all adjusting.  Brayden loves his little brother, and kisses him all day long.  But he has also showed his jealous side, which comes out at night around bedtime.  Nolan is sleeping 3-4 hour stretches at a time at night so far, which has been wonderful.  If there is one thing I DON’T feel, it is sleep deprived!  But as far as everything else, I feel less than par.  Unfortunately, due to a surgery to remove fibroid tumors in my breasts in college, I have horrible plugged milk ducts in my armpits and we are not going to be able to breastfeed.  I feel like a horrible mom, but I can’t live in this kind of pain everyday.  Mom guilt is the worst   I also had a 3rd degree tear when I delivered him, so I am recovering “down there” as well.  Hopefully in 2 weeks, I will feel a little more normal.  I have 10 weeks off with my boys, and I want to enjoy every minute possible.

Hopefully it will be sunny tomorrow afternoon and I can take Nolan’s formal newborn pictures, but I have these to hold you over for now!

We call this the “stink eye”

So who do you think he looks like?????

Well, I guess Nate and I were right all along…Nolan Jude was born on Monday, March 2nd, 2009   Exactly one week late of the doctor’s due date (just like Brayden) and born on a Monday (just like Brayden).  How is that for even more irony tied to Mr. Nolan?

We left Nick and Kathy’s house Sunday night after a wonderful, and very large, birthday dinner for Nate :)  I felt a contraction on the way home, but really didn’t think much of it.  But by the time we got home, I had felt a few more.  We stayed up for about an hour, then decided we should try to get some sleep.  Well, sleep wasn’t possible.  I called my mom to come over around 12:30, and we left for the hospital at about 1:30am because contractions were coming every 4-6 minutes.  With a 45 minute drive to the hospital ahead of us, I was scared to chance staying at home too long.  In the car, the contractions were about 2 minutes apart, but still very manageable.  The drive was not bad at all, which I was very surprised about.  The drive home was ten times worse!  I was finally set up and checked, and was only 3 cm dialated :(  I was pretty discouraged at that point.  We were set up in our room, and the nurse wanted to get one bag of fluid into me before I could get in the birthing tub.  At that point, my water broke, so I was unable to use the tub at all   (After your waters break, you risk infection to the baby.)  So I labored in bed and on the birthing ball, and on my side.  Nolan was born at 10:40am weighing 8lbs 11oz and 21 inches long.  We had a completely drug free birth! 

Day 1 pictures

More to come!