New arrival!!

Thomas Alexander was born on February 24th at 2:49 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 6 oz and was 20 inches long. He is perfectly healthy and so am I. It is true what they say. Giving birth the second time around is much easier.

Everything goes faster the second time around. Like twice as fast. At my 36 week appointment, I was already 2 cm dilated and 70% effaced and I progressed every week. Since Parker was pretty big, late, and painful to get out, I decided to set a date to be induced 2 days before my due date which, ironically, was the same day as the science fair which I've been working on all school year.

I never went into labor like everyone predicted I would. I think my body just gets ready soon and does nothing about it until late. February 24th came and I was waiting for a phone call to tell me to come to the hospital. I was 6th on the list and the nurse said it would be around 10:00. I slept in to about 7:30 or 8:00, but couldn't sleep any longer, so I got ready. I couldn't handle just sitting around the house, so I decided to visit the school to see how the set up was going and to get a look at my students' final displays. Everyone at work thought I was crazy for coming in, but I was glad to help out a little right before I was going to abandon them for several weeks. I finally got the phone call and went to the hospital at 10:45. After I checked in, the nurse gave me pitocin (to strengthen the contractions) at 11:30. My doctor was going to break my water, but I decided I wanted the epidural before the contractions started hurting. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist was busy, so I had to wait to 1:00 to get the epidural and the doctor broke my water around 1:30. That really got the contractions going and I quickly progressed to a 10 by 2:30ish and started pushing. I only had to push through 3 contractions and then another extra push to get him out. The pushed lasted around 15 minutes I would say (I had to push for over 3 hours to have Parker).

Everyone was surprised at how big he was. He was 3 oz heavier than Parker and a .5 in shorter. This surprised me because he was a week earlier. My doctor says I'm just programmed to have big babies. My mom had big babies too. In fact, I (the first) was 2 weeks late and weight 9 lbs. 6 oz. and was born through C section. The rest were all induced and I think that is what I'm going to be doing.

Little Tommy is so sweet. He doesn't cry much and he sleeps pretty well for only being a week old. He has huge feet and some dark hair, but not nearly as much hair as Parker. It will be interesting to see what color his hair will be in the end since Parker's hair color has changed so much.

Parker loves Tommy. He is always giving him kisses and trying to share toys. He calls him Thomas. I think he thinks he was named after Thomas the train. It has been hard for him to adjust to sharing his mommy. He now carries a blanket around and wants me to hold him while he is wrapped in it. He also wants to wear disposable diapers (I'm not using cloth on Tommy yet since he is so small and needs to be changed over 10 times a day) and Parker also doesn't want to wear pants, I guess because Tommy doesn't have pants on a lot. I think he is adjusting and that I am adjusting because at first Parker would cry if he wanted my attention, and say mama, and try to climb on top of me when I was feeding Tommy. Now Parker knows to wait until I'm done and I will give him my full attention. It has been more difficult than I thought it would be for Parker.

I feel so blessed to have these two precious boys. I love being a mom!