update...

I sat down to write a bleary-eyed e-mail update, and remembered this place. Saves the trouble of looking up everyone's e-mail, at least.

First, the old news - the new baby is here,and just had his one week birthday! We named him Thomas George. Thomas, because we think Tom Walchuk sounds good. george is the name of Mike's great-grandfather, who died very early, while his grandma was still a teenager. And it turns out, Thomas was his grandma's brother as well, so also a family name. it's also Mike's middle name. He was born at 10:30 p.m., April 28. Our first non-Thursday baby. But he was close - it was a Wednesday night.

The labour went well. My doc is still raving about how "civilized" it was. I saw him for a regular appt a day and a half into my early labour. Contractions had been about 10-20 minutes apart since the Tuesday morning, but I was only 3 cm by the appt. But it was real labour, so he told us to get some raspberry leaf tea, and he'd see me at the hospital soon - likely that night.

I'd already packed my bag, and left instructions for the grandparents, thinking that he'd send me straight on to the hospital, so I was a little disappointed. No offense to everyone who was at the house at the time, but I was feeling like a bit of a sideshow and didn't feel much like going home to be stared at in my pain, so we decided to stay out until it was time. It didn't take long. We ran some errands - Mike got his driver's licence changed. We walked around a bit. Shopped for the tea. We went to Dairy Queen for lunch, but I couldn't eat anything, let alone stomach the thought of ice cream, so I mostly just had the tea instead. After that, we went for a drive, but it was cut short - 45 minutes after taking the tea, we were in admissions, with contractions suddenly 4 minutes apart! Yikes!

He was born four hours later. I got the epidural, which was awesome. I felt nothing. They had to break my water carefully, because he wasn't lodged in right, and they were worried the water would sweep the cord out. It was done by the OB on call, and involved positioning the baby straight, then breaking the water with a contraction. He was born shortly after, with two quick, painless pushes. As the doc said, very civilized. Well, I lost a pair of socks in the deal, so it wasn't all good, but I'm not going into that here.

The doc stopped by at 9 a.m. the next morning to approve my discharge, but it took the nurse until 2 p.m. to do the paperwork. We were hoping to beat our record of being discharged 12 hours after the birth - a record set by Dave - but no such luck.

I was a little nervous to see everyone's reactions to Tom, but all of the kids love him! Especially Dave, who tells me 'he saaaad" every time the baby cries, and tries to soothe him by bringing him blankets and stuffies. Joan has claimed him as her own, and says "My baby love me!" and showers him with lots of gentle strokes, hugs and kisses. John thinks he's cool, and this morning, chose to sit in the back on the drive to school, so he could sit next to Tom, instead of his usual favourite spot in shotgun.

Being a newborn, Tom has already had a rash of doc's appts. He failed his initial hearing screen in the hospital, so we had to go yesterday for a more extensive test. But everything is fine - both ears tested perfect. They said he probably just had a lot of gunk in his ears at the start, because he was pushed out so fast - he wasn't squeezed enough to flush it all out.

His jaundice test came high, so we were asked by our doc's colleague to come in for a check. But our doc said because he was a bigger baby, it's within the acceptable limits, and he was looking healthy and alert, so he wasn't concerned. he was, however, mildly concerned by his weight - after a week, he still hasn't recovered to his original birth weight. He was only 8 pounds - 5 ounces short. He said we'd wait another week to see how he does or doesn't grow, but repeated that he looks very healthy, so it's likely all fine. But he told me to drink lots of water, in case it's a supply issue, and eat more high fat and calorie dense foods, including lots of fatty milk and cheese in case it's a milk quality issue. So, last night, I snacked on ice cream, and I've switched to the kids' whole milk to see if it makes a difference. I was hoping to drop my baby weight, but if he needs me to eat more ice cream and rich fatty foods for a while, well, that's just a sacrifice I'll have to make.

Well, better go. I'll keep you posted as things go - probably here, because it's easier than e-mail and I can say more than on facebook. I'm hunting for my camera cord, so I can post my own photos. I thought I had set it aside, but the move happened so fast, a lot of things have gone missing. In the meantime, if anyone has a good one of the kids or Tom, send it along, and I'll post post it up.