Hello, Joshua!

I haven't downloaded pictures yet, and am too lazy to do that now, but I wanted to get this written before some of the details slip my mind. (the pics above are from Jenny Wiley when she visited...glad she sent them along for me while I'm hoarding my own pics, haha)

I went in for my normal 37 week OB appointment on Thursday, December 23. My blood pressure was still horrible, my eyesight had gotten much worse, and I had a headache. They sent me over to labor and delivery to be evaluated for a while. They decided around 4:30 that Joshua was ready to make his entrance. Unfortunately, they had already let me have one cup of apple juice (no food since 7:30 a.m. though!) which would prevent the necessary c-section. So, we scheduled it for 9:30 the next morning...Christmas Eve morning!

They had to start me on medicine to prevent seizures because of the preeclampsia, but I handled the medicine well enough that I was able to still get up and go to the bathroom on my own and not be in bed all night long. So, we had some dinner and tried to get some sleep, which was difficult knowing surgery was in the morning and that nurses were in every hour to check my blood pressure and all that.

The next morning we got a call from my parents that Jacob had thrown up, so unfortunately we weren't able to see him on the 24th at all, just in case. Turns out he had a double ear infection, but we wanted to be safe with little Joshua and not have two sick kids!

They took me for the surgery, and Bob got dressed for the procedure while they gave me my spinal. Everything went well, and Bob came in just in time for me to throw up a few times, haha. About 20 minutes later, Joshua Ryan Lewis was here! He was born at 10:08 a.m., weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces, and was 19.5 inches long. Even though 37 weeks is a full term baby, they were worried about him possibly needing to be monitored in the NICU, but those nurses were out of there within minutes, and we knew we had one healthy baby on our hands! He actually came out peeing, and then cried, haha. He was extremely healthy, and everything went very well.

I still had to be on the medicine to prevent seizures for 24 hours after Joshua's birth, so we had to stay on the labor and delivery floor for another day before being taken up to recovery. Everything went fine, and they came in on Christmas to get me off the medicine and out of bed. I was able to take a shower and get cleaned up a little before going up to the recovery floor. After that, everything went really well. I think recovering from my c-section has been 100 times easier than recovering from my labor and vaginal delivery with Jacob because of how sick I was with him. Right now I'm having more muscle pain around my incision, but I think I've just been doing too much the past few days.

Joshua has been an unbelievable baby. He actually stays awake for a long time, which is nice. He definitely doesn't sleep as much as other infants, and has some really long stretches of being awake, but he still does sleep a lot of the day away! Jacob is such a wonderful big brother, and after a few days of being a little thrown off and whining plenty, he's getting back to normal. He likes being home with his toys and having Josh here. He asks to hold Josh, likes to go look at him, give him kisses, and he tells him everything we are doing. He loves having him in the backseat, and tells him where we are going. It is just so adorable to have two little boys at home and know they are going to be such buddies for years to come. I love that I've been able to enjoy these days with the boys, since with Jacob I was still so sick afterwards that I had so much pain medicine I can't remember all the little moments.

Josh will go to the doctor for the first time on the 10th. Since he's on formula, they don't need to see him as quickly because you can measure how much they are eating and most likely won't lose as much weight. He only lost an ounce while in the hospital...the boy likes to eat!

Bob is home for 2 more weeks...taking leave from school. So happy to have the family together. Now, just trying to find time to pack up the Christmas decorations and get our house back to the normal. We haven't even put up Josh's crib yet! But, things are great and everyone is healthy, and what more can you ask for?!

Because Josh was born on Christmas Eve, we went ahead and celebrated Christmas morning when we got home. We were sent home on Monday, December 27 and treated that as Christmas Eve and then did Christmas morning on the 28th. We lucked out because Jacob is old enough to understand the Santa and presents concept, but not old enough to know he celebrated on a different day. We wanted him home to open presents...that was more important to us than celebrating on a specific day. Plus, Josh got presents from Santa as well (thanks, Mom, for doing some shopping for us!).