The Birth Story: The After

Eventually the nurses came back into the labor room to finish up the routine things that the baby needed, we gathered our things together, and were wheeled to our post-partum room.

Our first order of business was to introduce Grace to her new baby brother. We had been referring to the baby by his name when I was pregnant, and it was nice to finally prove to her that "Baby Christian" was an actual person and not just my huge belly

We had gotten gifts for the two kids to exchange, and Grace was excited to finally give Christian his. Can you see her putting his gift into the bassinet in the picture below. I have to admit, it was hard to keep it together when I saw how sweet she was with him.

We spent the afternoon together as a family of four and then Aaron headed home with Grace for the night.

The next day was July 4th, I had Aaron bring Christian's festive onesie so we could kick our holiday celebrations into high gear.

We had some festively dressed visitors come by to meet Chrisitan.

Our wonderful friends watched Grace that afternoon so Aaron and I could spend some time together and with the new babe. Aaron brought an apple pie and we ordered some vanilla ice cream. We didn't see any fireworks, but we figured apple pie was a pretty good second best to celebrate Independence Day.

Aaron took Grace home every night, so both nights in the hospital it was just me and Christian. At first I was nervous to have it just be me, but this ended up being one of my favorite experiences. It was just me and my boy together. I didn't worry about anyone or anything else. Time wasn't an issue. We snuggled and slept, or didn't sleep. The hospital was quiet and peaceful and I soaked in every quiet moment knowing that the two of us probably wouldn't have an opportunity to do this again.

Although on the second night I was pretty delirious and couldn't tell the difference between my dreams and reality. I started talking to people who I thought were in the room and my talking woke me up only for me to realize that the room was empty and I for sure was talking to no one.

Aaron and Grace joined us for our final morning at the hospital. Grace was a huge fan of my bed and the cartoons playing on the TV.

But she also had a soft spot for her brother and helped when he needed to be burped.

Christian had his first blow-out that morning in the hospital which completely ruined his 4th of July onesie.

We got visited by the therapy dogs which were making their rounds through the hospital.

We packed everything up, (much to Christian's chagrin apparently)

Said goodbye to the incredible nurses (and I really mean incredible).

And after the most epic temper tantrum on the planet thrown by Grace on the car ride, we were finally home with our little boy.