Sorry, ol' blog!

I didn't mean to go quite this long without posting, but I think I severely underestimated how busy I'd be with a newborn.  Yup--that's right--I finally had that baby!  Five weeks ago, actually!  Sorry the blog got neglected--I'd promise not to have that happen again, but that's a promise I just can't make right now, you know?

I'll spare the gory details, but Colin was born on January 8th, which was his due date.  (Did you know that only about 4% of women give birth on their due date?  Pretty cool!)  I woke up that Sunday morning feeling totally discouraged because I had absolutely no sign of impending labor and I envisioned walking into work the next morning to my coworkers' pitying looks.  Anyway, we went about our day--ate breakfast, I scrubbed the grout haze off the bathroom backsplash tiles, Chris bought a wallet at the mall, then we went out for lunch and I ordered a BLT and a Sprite. 

We got back home around 2ish and right about 3:00 I had my first contraction that felt distinctly different than the other cramps/contractions I'd been having for the past few weeks.  They immediately started being about 4 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each.  They weren't painful, but they were definitely noticeable and timeable.  After an hour of that, I called the midwife and she told me to get in the bath to see if that changed anything and call back in an hour.  I was pretty sure nothing was going to change, but I got in the bath anyway and sure enough, the contractions kept coming and they kept getting closer together and stronger to the point that I had to concentrate on just breathing through them. 

At 5, when I called the midwife to follow up, she told us to go ahead and head to the hospital, so we threw a few more things in our bags, called my parents to tell them to start driving, and off we went!  We got to the hospital around 6ish, at which point my plans for a med-free childbirth were quickly going out the window--I was dying for an epidral!  We got checked in and I got prepped for an epidural, which I didn't realize would take AN HOUR!  Longest hour of my life!!!  The contractions were more and more painful and some of them had me in pathetic, silent tears.  Chris was a saint though and held my hand through each and every one and helped remind me to breathe and relax.

After the epidural I was able to relax and from there things progressed pretty quickly.  My parents were able to come in and hang out with us for a little bit, so it was nice to have some time with them and relax before things really got intense.  Anyway, around 10:30 it was time to get the show on the road and (sparing lots of details) Baby K was born at 11:24 pm!  They put the baby on my chest and Chris got to announce "It's a BOY!"  It was literally the coolest, most profound moment of my life.  We took one look at him, ran through the name choices we had picked out for a boy and within just a few minutes, we decided his name would be Colin Hubbard.

Things have been going swimmingly ever since.  Don't get me wrong--tt's a hell of an adjustment, but he's been a pretty easy baby for the most part. 

And without further ado, some photos:

Last pregnant picture at 38 weeks

Minutes after being born

Meeting daddy for the first time

Less than a week old

Hanging out with mom

5 weeks old!

Mr. Alert!