Monday, October 31, 2011

A family of five!

We're back home with a little boy- Sami Salem. He's enormous- 8 lbs. 6 oz. and a 141/2 inch head- lots of room for all the brains he's got.
He was born at 10:10 last night after a short but difficult labor. He managed to tie a knot in his very long cord, but right at the end of it all. He came out looking blue but quickly gained a great color, and he's very healthy looking with a healthy cry. I have to wake him up to feed him (I know! but just till my milk comes in) but he likes sleeping. Sometimes he'll cry- I think he has a lot of gas to burp up. He really likes to be held, of course.
Leila and Ali spent the night at our neighbors/friends and E brought them by on the way to school this morning. They were so happy to see him, giving him kisses. "I love you, Sami," Ali said as he said goodbye.
This afternoon he was having some trouble remembering his name, but when I let him think of it for a moment, he remembered.
Leila said something very sweet but I'm having trouble remembering it exactly- something about never having seen something so small and precious.
Ali wants to know if I'm still pregnant- he means the belly!
Leila went for a walk with me yesterday after my last post when my midwife told me to take a powerwalk for half an hour. I lasted 4 blocks and back. Then she said to lie down and see if they slowed down- they didn't- so we went in to the birth center. We beat her down there, so had to wait on the porch, and it got rather painful. Then things got better for a while- I got in the tub. Another walk afterwards, this time in the park next to the birth center with Habib, and then I walked around the room for a bit. I spent some time on the exercise ball (egg) with Habib rubbing my back. After a while the contractions got pretty bad and I wasn't dilating quite enough, so we decided to speed things up some. His little head wasn't coming down into the birth canal, so I had to push it down. Habib was a big help, holding me as I squatted and made the "angry cat" pose (arching my back) to force him down. Once he crowned it was pretty easy to push him out. (relatively! I think I pushed about 4 or 5 times.  He came out about 10:10 p.m.
The funny thing- Habib had a dream yesterday morning before I woke him up to tell him I was in labor. He had a bug in a bottle. The bug had food and everything in the bottle, but when Habib opened it up, the bug got out and didn't want to go back inside. And he thought it was a male bug.
(I've tried to avoid TMI- you didn't get ALL the gory details!)
The older kids are off to dinner and trick-or-treating with friends, and I've got this one dressed as a duck burrito. (Almost all gender neutral baby clothes are ducks!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! So happy to hear that everyone is doing well!

morningstar said...

Congratulations! Hope you are getting some sleep. But at least you have an excuse of raiding the Halloween candy at 2 am. You need your energy!

Lomagirl said...

This comment is so I don't forget- the midwife kept calling me Chrstine. "Push, Cristine, push." I finally told her my name was Cynthia, because neither Habib nor the other midwife would. She forgot again, though.