Oscar!

Our little dude is here! :) I had actually taken almost-39 week photos (cute ones, too) and planned on getting them posted here and I guess I took a little too long. I'll still try to get them up at some point, but for now I figured that it's much more appropriate to show off our little guy.

Oscar Joseph Wallace showed up exactly one week early, on March 8 at 5:34 pm. He was born on a Monday, and that Sunday evening I had actually gotten together for one last family dinner with my dad, Barb, Molly, and Jason prior to having a new baby around. Good timing on that, I guess. I'll post a somewhat brief and condensed version of the birth story here, but if anyone is interested I'm happy to share the less condensed version if asked. (I know I only have 2 photos posted here, I promise to post more...the computer I'm using for this post only has these 2 photos currently uploaded to it.)

So, at around 12:30am on March 8 I woke up to use the bathroom and noticed some cramping. After a short time I realized that the cramping wasn't constant, but coming in brief and somewhat regular intervals. I woke Joey up, and around 2 or 3am we decided that this probably was the real thing and we might want to try to get some rest but also make sure we had everything together. By around 5am it was intense, and we made sure that the house was closed up and Lucy had been taken out and given food, etc., and we went to the hospital. When I arrived I was checked out in triage and being about 4cm dilated and in labor they admitted me. The rest is kind of a blur, but basically things got more and more painful throughout the day. Everyone was incredibly supportive of my trying a natural birth, and I tried tons of things to both help things progress as well as help the pain: walking the halls, various positions in the room, and finally the jacuzzi shower. Unfortunately, at around the 13th hour of labor I pushed for the epidural, realizing that I was no longer coping and had nothing left for pushing. I continued to labor down (in much less pain) for a couple of hours, until we decided to see if we could get things going. I pushed for 2.5 hours until I thought that there was no way I could possibly do any more, and then our little guy finally showed up.

I'm in recovery mode now, feeling like this little 7lb 14oz person was really a Mack truck that ran me over. Things are definitely on the mend, though, and I'm feeling better every day. We're in the craziness of newborn-land now, and so I apologize if anyone out there has contacted me and I haven't responded. Hopefully as we get used to things I'll be back on top of emails and get more photos posted. Anyhow, back to Oscar now...I think I hear him grunting and getting ready to wake up :)