Baby Day & the beginning....

Camden Eli, born at 7:28 am on April 27th, weighing 7lbs and measuring 20 inches long:

Disclaimer: Most of the pictures of just Camden, after he was cleaned up, are blurry and weren't any good. So you get more pictures of me (even though I'm ugly) because hey, this was an incredible day and completely worth remembering. Besides, I'm sure if I looked beautiful in any of these pictures, hordes of women would inundate me with quite-deserved hate mail. :)

He has some seriously long toes and a pair of scrawny legs with cute knobby knees. His hair is more like peach fuzz, but it's kind of a honey blond color. His arms seem incredibly long. People say he looks like me - poor boy! I think he has kind of a beaky mouth and a really cute nose. He has a tiny little birthmark just under his bum. And the poor boy has a nice case of newborn rash. I guess he does want to be just like his mom!

So....... We made it to Baby Day!! I didn't really get much sleep the night before. Can't imagine why! But we had to be at the hospital awfully early Tuesday morning. This is me and our doctor just before the C-section.

I lose the big lump shortly after this (my belly, not the doctor!). Our doctor asked if he could pray with us before the procedure and he offered the nicest, most sincere prayer- that God would be with him as he performed the surgery and be with us and with our boy and that we would be great parents and raise up our son to know the Lord. It was really meaningful to me.

And I know he wasn't the only one to pray for us. I can tell you I really felt those prayers were answered -- Baby Day was only a little scary and I really was so blessed!

I only cried a little bit. Okay, I cried a lot. But mostly while they were doing the spinal block and after - because I felt so sick and I was dry heaving on the surgical table and feeling quite miserable. It was such a relief and happiness when they let Dan come join me (after I stopped gagging and everything was all prepped). Here I am at that point:

Dan was absolutely amazing and supportive and great. He was even brave enough to peek over the screen to see what was going on. He said he thought it would be reassuring to me, if he could do it without his eyes popping out or flinching. So he put on his "therapist face" and peered over. He was right. I thought it must not be too bad - he didn't even blanch.

The doctor did hold our son up above the screen, just after he came out, so I could see him. Even though the baby was in fact, kind of gross - being all white and a little bloody - I was amazed to see what our little boy looked like. He was not very happy to be pulled out of his cozy home and rubbed clean. Dan went with the nurses to the corner while they did their cleaning and measuring. I could hear our boy crying most of the time. This is Dan, carrying our son and showing him to me:

I was only able to see him for a few minutes and then Dan carried our boy to the nursery for the real clean-up and other baby prep. I'm glad Dan was able to be there and take pictures of all that. The anesthesiologist was very kind and distracted me with conversation just about the time I was beginning to feel frightened about what all was going on, on the other side of the sheet again.

Our baby was born officially at 7:28 am and I was all sewed up and back in my room at 8am. I didn't get to see my boy again until shortly after 11am because his breathing was very fast. The pediatrician wanted him to remain in the nursery until he breathed slower than 60 breaths/minute for at least half an hour, just to be sure he was monitored and wasn't developing an infection or something. Since I'd never been separated from him for so long, I was beginning to REALLY want to hold him and see him. Just about the time they were considering letting me take a wheelchair over to the nursery, the nurse brought him in! Here we are, me holding Camden for the first time:

We decided on the name yesterday. I was too dopey and tired to make any kind of decision on Tuesday. I think Camden gets cuter every day. I like him more every time I see him! Here is a pic from yesterday (I'm still really tired!):