The Story Thus Far....

We woke up at noon on 4/2/07 and Alyssa was already in labor. Not that painful yet, but definitely started. By 3am on the 3rd she couldn't take it so we called our friend Kellie and went over to her place. Kellie is a mother-baby nurse at a different hospital than the one we were going to deliver at, but we decided to use her as a coach for the whole thing since she knows so much about it. We took a dip in her hot-tub to help with the labor pains, which it did, but we weren't able to get to sleep at all. At 10am we decided to go to the hospital.

Alyssa's labor wasn't progressing that well, and we had been up for nearly 26 hours without sleep so we all decided that an epidural was a good idea. We don't see it as weakness or failure; she didn't give up and succumb, the exhaustion was actually causing complications and she was handling the pain just fine, she just needed to sleep. Once the epidural was in, the doctor broke her water for her. This got things going; Alyssa had been stuck dilated at 1 or 2cm for weeks, and in an hour she was up to 5, but it never got beyond that. Odin's heart rate was too low, so we decided to do a c-section now while it could be done safely rather than wait it out and see and have it be necessary to do one in an emergency situation.

Odin was officially born at 4:47pm weighing 8lbs 1oz at 20.5 inches.

That night, Alyssa was able to sleep because of the pain medications but I had gone 38 hours without sleeping so I called Dad to the room to watch Odin while I got some rest for an hour. We eventually sent him to the nursery so we could both get some rest. Alyssa was able to watch him a little after that, and I apparently used the time to sleep through every doctor and nurse visit we had for a while. I still only ended up with about 4 hours sleep since noon on the second, but it's worth it.

Dad had the day off on the 4th so he came over for about 5 or 6 hours to hang out. He took care of Odin while I slept and then Odin fell asleep with Alyssa so Dad and I watched them and played some card games. Our friends came back to visit some more, everybody is so happy for us. The whole hospital floor keeps talking about how cute he is.

Alyssa was feeling a little down that day because she can't do much with Odin. Because of the surgery, it's hard for her to hold him or burp him or walk around with him, so she feels like he doesn't like her very much. She also feels a bit like a failure because she couldn't give birth to him naturally. I talked to her for a while and she felt better about it. She keeps taking naps with him and they're so cute.

We were told on the 5th that it's okay for him to sleep in the same bed and since then he's been sleeping non-stop. He is so content when he sleeps with Mommy. I managed to get a lot more sleep -- off and on -- but not a lot. According to Alyssa, I slept so hard that she kicks me and throws stuff at me and I don't wake up. I know it's true because I would find heavy objects in my "bed" whenever she finally got me up. It makes me sad because I don't want to sleep through Odin crying, and I certainly want to be able to help Alyssa whenever she needs it, but I think I wont sleep as heavy once I'm caught up a bit on the last few days.

We wrapped Odin in the blanket that Emily gave us -- it's really soft, much better than the hospital blankets -- and he really liked it. He's so well behaved; doesn't cry often, is easily wooed, and sleeps a lot.

They said we could leave the next day.

We eventually were sent home, and some family visited, but everyone seemed to remember that we'd wanted to be left alone for the first few weeks. Odin is an extremely good baby; he sleeps until we get him up (unless we wait a really long time) but never so long that it might be cause for concern, he doesn't cry when I change him, and he is really easy to take care of.

I'll be setting up some online photo albums of all the pictures we got, so look for those.