Two Weeks.

It's hard to believe that our little man is already over two weeks old.  He has grown immensely in such a short time, it's unbelievable.  He's up to 9 lbs now and 21 1/4 inches long.  He eats like a champ (and has therefore earned himself the nickname "Milk Monster") and is one strong little boy--he can almost hold his head up completely on his own!  He is not a fan of being manipulated into the car seat, having his diaper changed, or having his clothes changed.  This is unfortunate because he spits up constantly and thus ends up with multiple outfit changes during the day.  He can go about three to three and a half hours between feedings which means I'm able to get some sleep throughout the night.  I don't yet feel like a sleep deprived new parent (knock on wood) and I attribute that to the fact that I work nights and am used to functioning on small amounts of sleep.

It has been amazing to watch this little being we created start to turn into a little person.  Will makes some of the cutest little faces, though I doubt he has much control over his facial muscles.  Sometimes he coincidentally smiles at just the right time and it absolutely melts my heart.  He has the most adorable little nose (which I think he got from Matt) and precious little lips.  Overall I'd say he is a pretty easy going and sweet little babe and I hope his temperament continues like this.

I haven't been the greatest about taking pictures of him, though I do snap some with my phone and put a few on Facebook.  Here are few pictures from my phone so pardon the quality:

Wide awake at night...still working on figuring out night and day. :)

Milk drunk Will.

Loves his swing!

It's a Boy!!

I realize that I have neglected this space for the last couple months, but I wanted to introduce you all to our son (!!): William Oliver Joseph was born on April 4th at 0454 weighing 8 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches long.

After his first bath.

I'm not sure how much interest anyone has in hearing his whole birth story, so I'll simply provide a quick recap.  We opted to schedule an induction prior to our due date, which I know can be a controversial topic. If you would have asked me if I would choose an induction earlier in the pregnancy I would have said, "No way, I have no problem going past our due date and this baby will come out when he or she is ready".  However, as our due date approached I was quickly becoming miserable (his head was sitting on my pelvis and yet he continued to kick me in the ribs!), making no progress towards labor, and our little man was just continuing to grow.  So, with that in mind our physician thought it best to get Baby out sooner rather than later.

Our original induction date was the night of April 1st.  We showed up to the hospital with our bags, pillows, blanket, and snacks and we were ready to get this party started!  Unfortunately, there was some sort of mistake and we weren't down on the schedule for an induction that night and the unit was crazy busy with pregnant ladies so there was no room for us.  This meant that we had to reschedule for two days later, Wednesday at noon, and head home.  I will admit that I cried the whole car ride home.  I was just so ready to meet our child and I had mentally prepared myself for what I was about to go through--labor.  Thankfully, they were able to fit us in the next night, Tuesday the 2nd.

I won't go through all the details of the induction, but it started slow Tuesday night and I really didn't seem to be making much progress until our doctor broke my bag of waters just after noon on Wednesday.  I requested an epidural a couple hours later once the contractions were a bit too painful for me and was able to rest comfortably for the rest of the day and night into the early morning.  I believe it was about 0230 or 0300 when I woke up nauseous from pain.  I knew that this was different from the earlier contraction pain as I had horrible low back pain and low pelvic pain.  I was given a bolus in my epidural and tried repositioning but that only lasted so long.  I don't know what time it was, but I told Matt to tell our nurse that I needed to push--you really can just feel when you need to push!

I did a few practice pushes through contractions with our nurse and it blew my mind when she asked, "Dad, do you want to see the head?".  Apparently I was a very effective pusher.  At that point, the nurse went to call my doctor to give her an update and let her know she should head over to the hospital.  I think we may have done a couple more pushes and I'm honestly not sure how long it was before my doctor got there and things started rolling, I was just trying to breathe through the pain of the contractions (the epidural was not cutting it at that point).  I do know that once she was there, I pushed through maybe two contractions and then our little man entered the world!

It was an absolutely amazing feeling to see and hear him.  I remember Matt crying and my being overwhelmed with emotion.  We were finally meeting this little person who had grown inside me for the last 10 months.  We had a son, and he was the most beautiful little boy I had ever seen.

It's hard to believe that Will is two weeks old now.  Time has just been flying and he has grown so much!  At our first doctor appointment at four days old he had already surpassed his birth weight and was 8 lbs 7 oz!  We have our two week appointment tomorrow and I'm excited to see how much more he's grown.  He is just the cutest and sweetest little baby and we are madly in love with him.  Parenthood has been an adjustment but it's also been absolutely wonderful.  I'm sure I'll be inundating this blog with pictures of him as he grows, but he is just too darn cute!!

Here are some pictures from the day of his birth:

XOXO, Matt, Ellen, and Will :)