Thoughts from Momma

Whew! We're about to start our third full day, and I think we're hanging in there pretty well. Charlie is the most precious thing I've ever seen, and each time I hold him it feels like I'm discovering him for the first time. Dave has been doing such a good job posting pictures; I think it's so neat that he's just a couple days old and almost all our friends and family have been able to see what he looks like (pretty cute, huh?)

Thank you all so much for your calls, emails, visits, and prayers. I hope to respond to each of you individually soon, but in the meantime I thought I'd share my thoughts on the last few days.

LABOR
Even after all the books, classes and personal stories, I had no idea what to expect from labor. Now having experienced it, I think I had a fairly good experience. Most of all, I am thankful that I did not need a c-section, mostly thanks to my nurse Gayle who got me from 4 cm to 8 cm in 2 hours when I hadn't been making much progress before. All our nurses in recovery were surprised I was able to deliver such a big boy without a c-section.

RECOVERY
I am amazed at how well I feel physically. I am by no means without pain or tiredness, but I feel like I am able to be up around pretty much as normal, albeit a lot slower than normal. Again, this is where I'm so thankful to have avoided a c-section and the challenging recovery that comes with it.

So that covers me, how about Charlie?

EATING
What a champ! Charlie has been doing a great job teaching me a lot about breastfeeding. Again, it doesn't neccessarily mean it's easy, but he seems to have mastered his end of things so I can focus on what I need to do for him. So far his feedings are fairly regular so he and I have been able to build our confidence as we work on getting our system down.

SLEEPING
We just survived our first night at home. He is already sleeping in his crib and didn't wake us except for feedings every couple hours. Needless to say, I'm still pretty tired, but am glad to have been able to get good blocks of sleep between 10 and 6. We'll see if it's enough to sustain me through the day.

I just have to say, there's no way I could be doing any of this without Dave, he has been so amazing from coaching me through labor to tackling his first diaper changes. Rodger and Janice, I hope I do as good of a job raising a man as you did.

Oh, and I'm sure a few of you are curious about how the dogs are doing since we brought Charlie home. They have been doing great as well. Bella, as predicted, really couldn't care less. She was much more interested in the pepperoni from my pizza yesterday than she has been about Charlie. Wesley, also as predicted, has been a little more stressed out about it, but is mainly very curious. When I'm feeding Charlie he'll usually sit outside the gate to the nursery and whine a little, but I think even he is getting kind of into the routine. So all in all, I think we have the makings of a nice little family!