He's Here!

Caleb Frederick made his debut on July 25th at 3:30pm. He weighed 6lbs 14oz and was 19.5 inches long. He is such a little doll baby.

Everything went pretty well during labor. I started having contactions around 7:30am on Monday (my first day of Maternity leave), but they weren't strong or regular, so I did everything I've done before to get them to stop... if they were braxton hicks. Turns out they weren't. When they started to hurt I called the doctor. He said since they weren't regular to just wait it out and go in when they were 5 mins apart. Otherwise just go to the appointment that was already scheduled at 11:15.

The contractions continued to be irregular in timing, even though they started hurting worse and worse. It was to the point where I didn't think I could drive if I had one while going to my appointment, so my mom said she would take me there. Good thing too, cause I was having them every 2-4 minutes while on the beltway. We got to the appointment and he checks me... I was 6cm. So he told me to go downstairs and have a baby. :-)

I tried to walk, but I was having too many contractions to get there in any sort of decent time, so they wheeled me over in a wheelchair. I got checked in and all that jazz and by the time I was admitted and they checked my progress (probably about a half an hour later) I was at 8cm. I -needed- an epidural. I really contemplated going without one, but I wimped out. A little bit more of labor and an hour of pushing and baby Caleb was born.

We called my mom right after I delivered to tell her to bring Elijah over, cause he was going to be the first person to see the baby. After all those months of prepping Elijah and wondering how all of this was going to go down, it was time to find out. We were so happy to find out that Elijah was -ecstatic- to meet his brother and to hold him.

This doesn't mean that he doesn't sometimes have pings of jealousy, but he does the best he can. He is a great big brother. He alerts us to Caleb crying and he gives him kisses all the time. He knows not to touch the baby without asking us first (with only being told once) and is very helpful when we need something out of reach. I'm sure as Caleb gets older they will be great friends.

Joe is in love with Caleb, as you can tell. He has been a great help too. He changed diapers and helped out where needed at the hospital and at home. He even puts up with my moodyness as a result of little sleep and hormone related rants and crying.

It has been a week (Although I originally wanted this posted last Thursday, but with a newborn and a 3.5 year old, little goes according to plan anymore) and things have been touch and go, as to be expected. I'm getting as much sleep as needed (I didn't say as I can, because I could be sleeping right now) and Joe takes over when he thinks I'm about to pass out from exhaustion. Thanks everyone for the congrats and well wishes. I will catch up on everyone's blog soon and comment. Until then, I hope everyone has a great rest of summer, cause I have no idea if my next blog entry will be in a week or 2 months from now. Hopefully the former.

As an aside, everything was done on my to-do list, on the Saturday before (even buying Elijah's big present... A Happy Napper). It should have been a sign...