Our New Baby: Introducing Sidekick!

Everybody, please welcome our new baby! Weighing in at 8 pounds, 10 ounces and 20 inches, this little dude is happily settling into life with our family at the new house. It occurred to me as I brought him home from the hospital that this new house – Nate and I's dream come true – might just be the only place that our new baby ever refers to as “home” throughout his entire childhood. It makes me feel so peaceful during this hectic time of our lives to envision my boys here 5, 10, 15 years down the line. I love the fact that they'll someday be able to run around in the open space, climb trees, raise animals and swim in their very own pool.

Our New Baby's Grand Entrance

I had a routine check-up a week ago with the nurse practitioner, and she was pretty convinced our new baby was on the way. “You're three to four centimeters dilated. Go have a little lunch,” she said. “Take a really long walk and if you feel crampy at all, check into the triage and have them see if things have progressed at all. Considering how fast your last labor was, I'd hate to have you go all the way home just to turn around and come straight back.” We live nearly an hour from the hospital now, so there's been a persistent fear of us having our new baby on the side of the highway. I walked my heart out for a couple hours and headed into the triage with relatively mild contractions a few minutes apart. We had our fingers crossed that this was it, but most of the pain was oddly in my lower back instead of in my stomach. I knew something was up, but this felt completely different than when I gave birth to Some Boy. The doctor examined me and looked at me like I was nuts. “Um, no. You're not even one centimeter dilated. You're not in labor. This baby's not coming before next week.” I went home, disappointed and sad. Our new baby wasn't due for another week and a half, but I was SO ready for this to be over.

Fast forward ten hours: the back pain kicked into high gear, waking me up at 3:30am with intense spasms every few minutes. I told Nate to pack the car, convinced that this feeling wasn't just some typical pregnancy pain. This didn't feel like the contractions I had with Some Boy, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. By the time we got to the hospital I could barely walk up to the desk, breathlessly explaining that my back was KILLING me. They examined me and confirmed that I was in labor. “Back labor,” the nurse said. “You're 8.5cm dilated…this baby's coming right now.” They rushed me up to the delivery room where I demanded an epidural STAT (seriously, I don't know how people ever manage to do this without pain meds) and gave birth to our son less than four hours after waking up at home. The same doctor who examined me earlier that day was the one to deliver our new baby. I did manage to taunt him the tinsiest bit amidst my pain. “Fancy seeing you here,” I said, “before next week!”

Sidekick is here: Welcoming Our New Baby to the Family

After watching Some Boy with the little guy for a little while, we've decided to refer to him as “Sidekick” here on the blog (as with Some Boy, we won't be revealing our new baby's real name for privacy reasons). We've had to explain to Some Boy a few times to be gentle with the baby, but he's taking to being a big brother like a fish takes to water. He gives the baby gentle little kisses and hugs, and the other day I even caught him trying to share his lollipop with Sidekick. We didn't find out our new baby's gender ahead of time, but I'm really glad I had two boys. My heart just melts knowing that Some Boy will have a brother to play around with. These two will be thick as thieves. The dog, Kracken, has even gotten used to having our new baby in the house, curling up protectively next to Sidekick in the baby bouncer.

Sidekick is a week old now, and he's settling in nicely. He's had a little trouble with jaundice but seems to be feeling almost all the way better now as he adjusts into a stable eating routine. He had a couple scary incidences of severe choking in the hospital (they think he swallowed too much “stuff” during his rapid travel into the world), but fortunately hasn't repeated that at home. We're keeping our fingers crossed that our new baby doesn't wind up having acid reflux like his big brother. So far he's shown a lot of cute little preferences: he loves being held and absolutely hates having his diaper changed, seems to enjoy stretching his limbs out and can't stand being tightly swaddled. Nate's taken some time off of work and we're so happy to just kick back and relax a little at home with our new baby, the toddler and the puppy.