As many of you know, we welcomed Jacob to our family on November 20 at 11:03 am. He was 7lb 11oz and 20.5 inches. We were so surprised that he was a boy! And so excited to have him join our family.
I finally went into labor the evening of 11/19 (he was due 11/18 but everyone had said he would probably come early so my expectations were set!). As you may have read in
my last post, I had been having contractions for weeks and weeks. So, when I was baking pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving I wasn't surprised when my contractions started up again. This time, however, when I laid down, they didn't stop. They were less intense, but did not go away. So I started timing them and they were mostly consistent. We weren't sure what we should do, but it was about 10pm and after an hour or so we decided it was probably wise to go into the hospital. We called Adam's parents and finished packing our hospital bags. On the way to the hospital I still was not convinced this was the real thing and kind of assumed they would be sending us home. It was a little after midnight by the time we pulled into the parking lot. We got out of the car, started walking, I leaned over to give Adam a kiss, took 2 more steps, and my water broke. I said "well, I guess we are having a baby!"
I had considered going drug-free with this baby. We had tried with Rebekah and after hours of labor and being up all night with no sleep or food, I ended up with the epidural. This time, I decided that because it was 2am and I was already totally exhausted, I would rather try to get some rest and enjoy the next day with my new baby instead of being up all night pacing the halls. I got some rest, but no real sleep after the epidural. My doc came in around 9am and started pitocin because I wasn't progressing very well, and just before 11am I was ready to push!
We spent 2 more nights in the hospital and came home on Thanksgiving day!
The last 6 weeks have been a whirlwind of diaper changes, breastfeeding issues, toddler adjustments, and holidays. I honestly can't believe 6 weeks have gone by already, and I
really hope January slows down a bit now that we are past the holidays.
People always ask me how Rebekah is adjusting. All in all, she has done great! We've had some issues with her testing boundaries, but honestly I think that is mostly her just being 2. She
loves her little brother and shouts excitedly when he is "aaa-waake!" These two are going to be great friends, I just know it.
You may remember that we took monthly pictures of
Rebekah and her Bee. We have started the same tradition with Jacob. His animal is a very special raccoon that was Adam's when he was a baby. We didn't have the raccoon for the very first pictures, so we used a turkey (since he was our little turkey baby!) and the frog Rebekah bought him as a present. We were able to start the raccoon pictures with his month 1 pics.
Jacob at 5 days, and at 1 month
We have lots of photos to share, and many more to come from Christmas. You can see more photos from his
first month here, and his
Raccoon pictures here (or click on the albums below).
