Here are some pictures of Ben. He is so cute.
The girls have been so excited to have their baby brother here. The first thing Mary wanted to do was change his diaper. I don't have any pictures of Sara holding him yet, but I'm sure I'll get some soon.
So far, he has been a pretty good baby. He is alert and wants to look at everything.
This is a picture of him a just a few hours after he was born. His hair looks really light in this picture, but it is actually dark.
The hospital experience was not bad at all. I would prefer to have babies at home, but it was way better than I expected. Here's the story of baby Ben's birth:
I had an appointment with my midwife on Thursday at 10:00am. She put me on some fetal monitoring device because I was 8 day past my due date. She just wanted to make sure everything was okay. She didn't like the results because baby Ben's heart rate wasn't going up as much as it should be. She consulted with a doctor and he suggested that I either be induced or that I do more monitoring and a ultrasound.
I didn't want to pay for more monitoring or an ultrasound, so we decided to just go ahead and have the baby. She sent me over to the hospital. I got there at about noon and they told me that they didn't have any room for me and told me to go home and wait for their call in a "few" hours. I waited and waited, finally at about 5:30 pm the midwife called and said that they still didn't have room and I needed to wait a "couple" more hours. I waited some more, then at 9:00 pm they called and said they would have room for me at 10:00 pm.
We got there at 10:00 pm, and got all settled in. I didn't want any kind of medication, so the midwife broke my water at 11:30 to see if that would be enough to start labor. It was enough and by 1:00 am I was in full blown labor.
I was doing awesome for a few hours and then by about 5:00 am I was so tired that I decided to have an epidural. They told me it would be 20 minutes until the guy could come to give me one. I said okay, but by the time he got there, I was ready to push. I pushed for 6 minutes and Ben was born at 5:47 am. He was my smallest baby at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 18 in. long.
Everything went great. I didn't need stitches, which surprised me because I needed them with both the girls. I was happy that I didn't end up having any medication before or during the birth. I did let them put me on Pitocin after he was born because they said it would help with the bleeding and I have a history of heavy bleeding after birth.
I was hoping to spend the least amount of time possible at the hospital. My goal was to be there less than 12 hours. We ended up staying a total of 14 hours, so I almost met my goal.
The nurses were very nice and understanding and didn't make a fuss about me doing things different than most people. I requested to not have baby Ben get any of the shots that they give most babies, and they didn't make a big deal out of it. They told me that usually people stay for 24 hours after the baby is born, but when I told them I wanted to get the heck out of there, they did all they could to make it happen.
All in all, everything worked out the best it could. So far, I feel great. This has been the easiest recovery out of all my deliveries, but it is only the second day. Hopefully, it continues that way!
We are loving having a baby in the house, and Ben is a really good baby. The girls love taking care of him. They can both change his diaper all by themselves and they like to do it.
