He's Here!

After nine months of waiting and wondering and worrying and hoping, our little squeaker, Callen James, was born on June 11th, 2011 at 5:19 PM, weighing 9lbs, 8oz and measuring 21.5 inches long.

I woke up around 5 am on Saturday and was unable to fall back asleep (not an anomally at this point in my pregnancy.) so I got up and putzed around online for a while. Around 5:15 I started having contractions that were significantly different from the Braxton Hicks that I had been having for week (it is definitely true, at least for me, that you just know when you're in labor.), so I started timing them and they were 5 minutes apart off the bat. After about 45 minutes, I called the doc on call and was told to go to the hospital. We dropped Audia off at my parents house and made our way to the hospital, where they monitored me for about an hour and a half before admitting me. While my progression was very slow, my contractions were regular and with VBACs they don't take any chances.
To say that this labor and delivery were different from my first would be an enormous understatement. It was night and day! With Audia, things progressed slowly, then extremely quickly, and then stalled for 6 hours before ending in a cesarean. They had to break my water, the epidural only worked on half of my body, and Audia got stuck in a "sunny side-up" position, which caused me to get stuck at 9.5 cm and hyper-contract for 6 hours. With Callen, things progressed slowly but steadily. My water broke on it's own, the epidural worked the way it is supposed to, and I labored for a total of 11 hours and pushed for 40 minutes. While I would never describe labor and delivery over all as being an easy thing to do or go through, comparitively, this time around it was a piece of cake. I would go as far as to say that I actually enjoyed it. I was actually able to enjoy my time in the hospital, to nap, to watch tv, to laugh and joke around with my husband.....all things that after about hour 2 with Audia's labor, were completely out of the question. And the recovery, of course, has been a dream comparitively. Of course I am stiff and sore, but I was able to get up out of bed on my own without assistance a mere couple of hours after delivering! Compare that to about 2 and a half days with the cesarean. Not to mention there are no restrictions on how much I can lift, or on driving, or pain when I laugh, cough, or sneeze.....If you can't tell, I am thrilled-beyond thrilled-that I was able to have a successful VBAC (and that, as a result, I can definitely deliver vaginally in the future!)

As for Callen, he is absolutely perfect! He is just a perfect little peanut, and we are all (Audia included) completely in love with him. He's been a champion eater and pooper from the get go, and so far is a very relaxed baby. Audia came to see us at the hospital on Sunday morning, and from the get go has been an absolutely amazing sister to him. She is so gentle, and interested, and in adoration of her baby brother! She calles him "my baby Callen" and she gives him her toys, talks to him, snuggles him, and gives him hugs and kisses. She loves to help us with him, and to hold him in her lap. I was really worried that once we got him home, she would quickly tire of, and become jealous of the attention we are giving him. Thankfully, so far she's seeming to take everything in stride, and while of course there are moments that she wants us to put him down to pick her up or to drop what we are doing to play with her, she has overall been very understanding and patient. An ideal big sister to say the least!

Our first couple of days getting to know our little squishy squeaker have been wonderful. So far, Callen is an extremely easy-going baby. He rarely wakes, let alone fusses, when we put him in his basinette, and he was perfectly content in his car seat the entire ride home from the hospital (much unlike his sister, who hated being restrained in any way, shape, or form pretty much from the day she was born.) He, of course, still has his days and his nights mixed up, and Chris and I are trying to remember how to work shifts with breastfeeding, but the truth is I'd much rather be snuggling with my little man than sleeping anyhow. I had forgotton how insanely soft and squishy newborns are! Audia still has super soft skin, but newborn skin takes soft to a whole new level. And then those are those short, fleeting periods of 5-10 minutes when he is awake and alert and obviously trying to figure out where the heck he is and what is going on....those melt-your-heart moments where he meets your gaze and holds it. Not to mention watching him sleep and seeing all the funny faces he makes when he's dreaming. Needless to say, we are definitely in a state of euphorically sleepless new-baby bliss. Welcome, baby Callen! We are so happy that you are finally here!!