It’s hard to imagine one that a week ago today we were just having a regular old Sunday. We read the paper, went to church and for some reason decided that it would be great to go to a “greasy spoon” sort of restaurant to eat. We found a place on U street that totally fit the bill and ate a really great breakfast of eggs, hash browns, toast, bacon etc… Then all we had left for the day was a long-planned baby shower being thrown by our neighbor at 3:00.
Little did we know that Su’s bag of waters had already broken and that Danny would be with us before too long. Fortunately at 38 weeks a baby is considered full term so we were very excited to learn we'd meet our little guy sooner rather than later. Of course we had no idea that we’d have a son. We purposely did not find out the baby’s gender when we had our ultrasounds, but it just seemed that every old wives tale including the “ring on a chain dangled over the mama’s pregnant belly” pointed to us having a girl. So were we surprised? Yes. Were we disappointed? No way. It’s fantastic!
I’m not sure when Su will post the longer saga of Danny’s birth so I’ll let her do the honors, but I will let you all know that our natural birth plan at our local birth center went perfectly until the very last stage of labor. It’s a long story but we were transported to Washington Hospital Center where our baby was delivered via C-section. As Su mentioned earlier, it wasn’t the birth we imagined but the final outcome was more than we could ever have dreamed of! I think we are both still processing everything and have both been moved to tears at different times this week. They are tears of joy and gratefulness. We both feel SO blessed!
Danny has so far proven to be a sweet little guy. Maybe all parents believe that their babies are how shall I say?—perfect?—but really he’s amazing. I guess all newborns are intoxicating. All of our senses are so aware of every part of Danny. I really “get” that gazing at your baby for hours thing now. I love watching him watching us watching him. Sometimes for fun he'll open just one eye which makes us call him our little pirate "aaarrrggg!" He seems to love hearing us chatter and sing to him (when we are not cooing at him like love sick little morning doves!) He even smiles at times which is ADORABLE although I've been told this is just a wee bit of gas. No matter, he's freaking ADORABLE! He seems to disdain getting his diaper changed though. Like he thinks we're going to let that go if he complains enough? Funny little fellow eh?
As I write, Su and Danny are sleeping upstairs. We’ve been up every couple of hours with him and as much as I wish I could help Su with the feeding part, right now that’s not something I can do. (Not that it’s stopped our boy from trying to latch onto lots of parts of me! ;-) There will be plenty of time to help with feeding him expressed milk later. The breast feeding has been going great. The hardest part I think has been for Susanne to get moved into either a good sitting or lying position at times. Having the C-Section was major abdominal surgery and although she is healing well, it still really hurts to move in certain ways. This too will pass of course, but I’m just trying to do everything I can to help her get up or shifted properly. Gosh, one thing about hospital beds—they can really do that work for you!
Alrighty then I hear the family stirring upstairs. Time to go. I'm excellent at changing diapers and swaddling now. I wonder if I can put that on my resume? Have a great day everybody! –Monica
P.S. There really are more photos on the way, including some that feature his lovely dark hair!
No comments:
Post a Comment