Hail to the Chief

It's been 2 weeks since our little J made his grand entrance into the world. Our handsome guy arrived on June 3, 2013 at 3:03pm which I am so excited about. I have a thing with the number 3. It's my lucky number and I predicted (and secretly wished) several months ago that Jack's birthday would be June 3. Despite his large size and my doctor's concerns, I chose not to have a c-section and I'm so glad I didn't have one. Delivering this 9lb 7oz guy was a breeze, I had no problems at all aside from the insanely painful contractions. I don't know what happened when I was in labor with M but I didn't experience contractions. I was in pain but it was more like a dull ache all over as opposed to an on and off wave of cramping. This time I was not as lucky, contractions are (excuse my language) a bitch. With M, I was lucky enough to get an epidural early in the labor and a 2nd dose just before pushing. This time I pretty much went through the entire labor without drugs. At noon I was ready for my epidural but they wanted to give me fentanyl first. Who's the one in pain here? Give me my epidural! That fentanyl lasted a whole 10 minutes. I waited another hour and asked again for my epidural but once again the nurse made me wait. Apparently I needed more fluids before they could give me the epidural. Finally at 2:00pm they gave me that sweet sweet epidural. By this time I was in so much pain it was hard to sit up, that was probably because I was sitting on his head. I noticed right away that the epidural only took the edge off the pain, it wasn't working nearly as well as it had when I was in labor with M. I waited about 20 minutes and then told the nurse I thought I needed to push. She was skeptical but checked me anyway and just as I had thought, I had no cervix left and was indeed ready to push. I only pushed for 15 minutes this time and despite the nurses being stingy with the drugs, they turned out to be fantastic coaches.

I'm a name nerd, and I know I can't be the only one. So for all the other name nerds out there, here's the story behind his name. When I was pregnant with M, before we knew if we were having a girl or boy, we were talking to my grandma about baby names and she said she had always loved her grandfather's middle name, Chief. His mother was an American Indian and had named him Thomas Chief as in Indian Chief. We loved it right way but we weren't crazy about Thomas. We couldn't come up with a first name we both liked that would go well with Chief and M ended up being a girl. At some point we came up with Max Shepard for a boy but we both kept coming back to Chief. I suggested J at some point and we both liked it but we weren't crazy about the popularity of J and kept talking about other name options, we considered Aaron for a while but when I told my grandma about J and Aaron she said "I love Aaron but I don't like J". Apparently my great-grandfather, her dad, had always named his dogs J. Ryan and I have a secret problem with dog names. When considering girl names for J, we talked about Sadie (my favorite) and Sophie (Ryan had a dog named Sophie). Most of you either don't know or probably forgot that when I was younger I actually had a dog named M. Told you, dog name problems. I actually really wanted to name J Sadie George if he had been a girl. George for my great-grandfather, but Ryan refused. So when my grandma said that my great-grandfather always named his dogs J, that was the connection I had been looking for and it sealed the deal. He was officially J Chief.

I'm sure by now you have all seen the beautiful pictures my cousin Sally took. A few months ago I came across an article online about birth room photography and fell in love with the idea. Everything happens so fast and being in pain and on pain medication makes it easy to forget some of the special little moments. Sally is an unbelievably talented photographer. She's been taking our Christmas card pictures for the past 3 years and we are always so happy with her work. She did not disappoint with our hospital pictures! One of my favorite pictures that she took was a special little moment between M and Ryan. It's the shot of Ryan giving M a boost so she could see her baby brother in the nursery. I was getting settled into my recovery room and would have missed that moment if she hadn't been there to document it for us. I can't thank Sally enough for being there to not only document the event but also share the special day with us. Thank you so much Sally! Also, I highly recommend her if you're in need of a photographer. You can see more of her work here.

I'm not going to sugar coat it. Having 2 kids is pretty crazy. They definitely keep me busy, especially since they're both mommy's babies. M is such a sweet and loving big sister. She loves helping out any chance she gets. She has had a little trouble sharing the attention but we're all working on adjusting to the new changes and getting back into a routine. Ryan was home with us for 2 weeks and he was a huge help. He really is super dad.

J got off to a little bit of a rough start. He was born with low blood sugar so I nursed him twice right after he arrived but it wasn't enough to raise his blood sugar so he needed formula. He also had jaundice which required formula so that he could urinate enough to flush out all the bilirubin. After getting used to having a bottle J had a hard time nursing. I did some research and found some information on exclusive pumping which has worked out really well so far. I was a little offended that he refused my boob, M had no problem switching back and forth from boob to bottle but J insisted on bottles. J's jaundice is all better now and he's gained all of the weight back that he lost in the first couple of days. He's growing, pooping and eating like a little champ. Not to mention sleeping like one of us already. He only wakes up once at night and then again at 6am which is when Ryan wakes up anyway so I'm not nearly as sleep deprived this time around. Everything is going so well! I still can't believe we have 2 beautiful, healthy kids. I am so lucky! I also never thought I would love another guy as much as Ryan but along came J Chief.

*All photos were taken by the insanely talented Sally Muir of Sally Muir Photography