Day 70- New baby, birth story, etc :)

It's hard to believe, but 1 week ago we welcomed Asher Alan Hunt into our family! He was born on 3/4/2013 at 5:20 pm. He weighed 7 lbs, 3 ozs and was 19.5 inches long- exactly the same measurements as his big brother!














I will probably write more on this later, but this labor/birth experience was very different from my first. To make a long story short: I went in at 41 weeks for an induction. I had them break my water at 9 am to try one last attempt to get my body to go into labor on its own. Alas, I barely had any contractions. I started Pitocin at 1:00pm and started contracting pretty good on the lowest dose. They bumped me up one level of the Pitocin around 2:00pm and my contractions started getting really close together and really intense. I was basically contracting for 1-1.5 minutes every 2 minutes- hardly enough time to catch my breath! The frequency of contractions from the pitocin is what I remember as killer from my first labor. I decided around 2:30 to get an epidural, since I was at 5 cm and barely making it through contractions. After a small ordeal with my blood pressure and Asher's heart rate, I was much more comfortable and able to watch HGTV for a little while :). My midwife came in to check me around 5pm and said, "Let's have a baby!" I was so surprised that I didn't believe her! They brought everything in and I started pushing. After a couple minutes, I started getting instructions that I really needed to push as hard as I could, then heard some snipping sounds and a couple pushes later, Asher was born! I ended up with a second degree episiotomy because Asher's heart rate went down into the 50's while I was pushing due to the speed of my labor. Thankfully, he came out with strong cries and I was overcome with amazement that my son was here!

I am so thankful that we have another healthy baby boy in our family! Sometimes I am still in shock that we are now parents of two children. That seems so grown up :). I mean, 29 and 2 kids is pretty much proof that I am now a full-fledged adult. Why do I still feel like a teenager sometimes???!

Caleb is doing well with his new brother. We have had a few more melt-downs and whiney moments than usual, but overall, he is dealing with this change as well as can be expected. He loves his brother and likes to give him kisses. I am so excited to see their relationship grow over the next few months and years.











We're a little tired around here, but doing well. Asher is still in the sleepy, newborn phase, so I just have to keep up with the 3 hr feeding schedule. We've been out and about already- we went to church and small group. Hopefully we can keep up the pace and hopefully Asher continues to be a good sleeper. So far, I think my placenta pills are helping keep me balanced and minimally hormonal. (more on my placenta encapsulation later) Well, I better get a little shut eye before the midnight feeding!