We did it!!!!!
Here is a picture of my pregnant belly right before we left for the hospital...
Jay Thomas Raber was officially introduced Thursday February 19th at 10:05pm. He weighed 7lbs 13 oz and was 21" long. We are so in love. Ok so how was it? Everyone says "oh you forget about labor as soon as its over", I have not, I remember everything! BUT I will say it was not as bad as I thought and after the epidural it got a lot easier.
Here's his first picture...
Once we got to our recovery room we decided to take the advice of so many and put Jay in the nursery for a few hours so we could sleep. I told the nurse to bring him back in as soon as he needed to eat. I felt like an absolute mess, swollen face (pushed for 2 hrs), back ache and legs wobbly from epidural and most of all down there was really hurting. We went to sleep about 2:00am after grandma and grandpa left. I woke up suddenly at 5:00am and thought my baby needs to eat, why is he not back here? It had been 3 hrs and he needs to eat! I took things in to my own hands and went out to find my baby.
I had not been out of the room so I had no idea where the nursery was - I figured I would follow the baby cries... so I pulled my sore body out of bed, tried to straighten out my hospital gown and limped down the halls in search of my baby. I get to the nursery, somehow I had taken the back way and was not able to get in the door so I started knocking on the window. A nurse came out and I told her I needed to feed my baby! She looked at my wrist band and went to go get Jay. She came back about 2 minutes later and double checked my band and asked if I was sure that was my room #. What? You lost my baby? I was panicked! Then out of no where my nurse came flying around the corner and said Erin I have jay, I just brought him to your room for a feeding. Ahhh relief! So I wobbled back to my room, and happened to notice a big band-aid hanging half way off my arm, (thought i had gotten rid of it) with a giant bleeding cotton ball from my IV. I can only imagine what the nursery nurses were thinking.
We spent the next 2 days in the hospital getting used to Jay and his many noises and movements. I kept the nurse button close and used it often as I always felt like he was choking. Saturday came and we packed up (we brought way to much!) Our next adventure was getting him home, but before that we needed to get him ready. After about 1/2 we were set!
We took Lake Shore Drive home and drove very slowly. As we all know the north side of Chicago is very crowded and busy and on a Saturday afternoon. As we headed to our house we noticed people going about their normal life, getting coffee, meeting friends, going shopping, talking on their cell phones etc - as we drove thru this, Loren and I kept saying to each other, none of these people out there know what we have in this car right now! It was just so cool!!!
As soon as we got home we gave Jay a tour of his house and introduced him to Mystery the kitten. Jay loves his room and is excited to call it home.
