Baby!

I'm definitely no good at blogging - look how long it's been since my last entry.  Happily the last few months of pregnancy are over now!  I had the baby on January 15 at 7:08pm, and it was a boy - hooray!  We named him Grant Michael Curtis.  My labor story goes like this:

I noticed that I was having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions on the Sunday before, the 11th, as well as the Monday and Tuesday.  I went to see my doctor on Tuesday afternoon for my 39 weeks appointment, and she asked me if I'd like her to strip my membranes - there was no hesitation in my "yes please!" at all.  She did that, and told me that I was 1cm, so all the painless contractions had actually been doing something!  She also said that it takes most women 10 hours to get to 1cm, so I had already completed the first 10 hours of labor.  I left the doctor's office very excited.  My contractions were still almost entirely painless that evening and the next day, Wednesday.  Wednesday afternoon at 2:45pm, my water broke - actually, just began to leak a tiny bit.  The contractions began to be mildly painful from then on, and always less than 10 minutes apart.  I stayed up almost all night Wednesday since I didn't know if we would be going to the hospital or not, then I tried to get some sleep and got about two hours.  We went to the hospital at 6:30am and they admitted me since my doctor said she would be coming in to break my waters the rest of the way to get things going, which she did around noon.

After that I really started to have contractions.  At the end I only had to push for a few minutes and out he came.  I had to get a few stitches, but he's completely perfect and such a happy baby.  He was very alert right away and visited with us and wanted to nurse.  We left the hospital on Saturday, the 17th at noon.  It is such a relief - more than I can express - to have him out!  I feel so much better.  My nausea is gone, and the terrible headaches I was having are gone as well.  I still get headaches, but I had chronic headaches before getting pregnant.  

The baby hardly ever cries, and is very easy to soothe.  He's also very patient and agreeable.  He doesn't mind his crib, his carseat, his hats - I'm worried that I don't know when he IS happy since I can't tell when he's unhappy as he never complains!  He's taking a snooze with Dad right now, and it's amazing to us how, to quote a Brad Paisley song, "went from something's missing to a family".  I love him so very much.