It's been a while, and now I have a kid

I've been waiting to post until I felt like it or had time, and since the former hasn't really happened, I'm going to post now .. since I kind of have time. 

As you may have guessed if you didn't already know, I've been MIA because I had baby Dave -- but not on Baby Day. He actually came the day after, leaving me in non active and active labor for about 24 hours. I'll spare you the fun details, but let's just say at about midnight (that's right, after hanging out having contractions all the live long day) they broke my water and gave me drugs. Then I took a four hour nap (best nap ever!) and then I had a baby. And that was pretty much it.

Evidence: 

From there it was pretty much recovery with a really smelly roommate, learning to walk with extreme muscle fatigue so that I could leave the hospital without falling over, more smelly roommate, lots of visitors that were not expected and that were male and that were wearing boots and so on and so forth. 

And then I got to come home and sit around my house for days and days on end, loosing track of time, sleeping, trying to get Baby Dave to wake up enough to eat (never really successful at that), finally resorting to pumping and bottle feeding because I just couldn't handle it anymore, heading to the lactation lady for salvation from the pump, finally getting him to eat the right way, and so on. 

Meanwhile my mommy flew in to help me, because, let's be honest, mommies make everything better. Luke has been in Ohio since Friday visiting his family -- he gets home tonight. People have been awesome and brought us lots of delicious food for dinner, including dessert. And that's pretty much all there is to it.

The next challenge -- now that I've figured out how to feed the child and can do so in public sorta without loosing it -- is going back to normal life. We went to church Sunday, but that was the first normal thing we've done since he was born almost two weeks ago. Normal life will begin Wednesday evening, I think, as we head to small group and since Luke will be back to work Thursday. My mom leaves Wednesday, so I'll be really on my own. 

I'm sure I can handle it, but it HAS been nice having my mom here to do dishes and fold laundry and the like. (This is especially true as Baby Dave and I have thrush and everything that gets milk on it must be washed every day to keep us from reinfecting each other ... and our washing machine is hardly stellar on the timeliness front). It will simply take time to adjust my schedule to get everything done and be in the places I'm supposed to be on time while feeding, dressing, bathing, etc. him. I guess this is what motherhood is.

Luke leaves on June 1 for at least 8 months. This not excellent news was given to us the day before Baby Day, and was a bit of a surprise. We knew it was possible, but not likely ... he was supposed to live at the end of July instead. Early June is WAY different than late July.

Still I know I'm a lucky duck -- my husband is only going to be gone 8 months instead of 12 like most others. And we didn't have to move to Kansas. Really, I have no room to complain. Still, when I think about all the cute baby moments he's going to miss, the fact that Dave will be 9 months old when he gets home, that Dave likely wont have any idea who Luke is ... yeah, it's hard. I cry. 

So, in an effort to not drag us all down at the end of this blog post, I shall give you some baby pictures. More available on Facebook.