Nearly 4 days old!

I've totally lost track of what day it is.  But I know one thing:  Spencer is almost 4 days old (just a hint under 2 hours shy of it)!

First things first:  I forgot to record one part of our birth story that I think is significant.  There are many other details that aren't so important.  Anyway, I had to do "intermittent monitoring" while in labor so they could make sure he was doing okay with the contractions.  They wanted to see some reactivity to the contractions, or variations in his heartrate at the time of the contraction.  They had a hard time getting this for whatever reason (probably just positioning of the monitors) and unfortunately this meant that at times, I had to be lying down quite uncomfortably in the bed.

One particularly long monitoring session, they couldn't get a good reaction from him.  I laid on my right side, but after awhile I felt like I was expending so much energy trying to stay on my side with the bed propped up that it was making it difficult to deal with contractions.  I flipped to my back for a few minutes but it was horrible.  Then I tried my left side.  They eventually got some great reactivity there, but I also felt like my contractions were slowing down and decreasing in intensity.  I felt myself drifting and I actually fell asleep for a few minutes.  This was pretty close to the end of active labor, nearing Transition.  When I told my midwife, she said that was pretty common and a good sign.  She said sometimes "nature" knows we need a break before the big action begins.  Anyway, I thought it was an interesting part of the story...maybe it's just me.

Okay, so we got to be released from the hospital on Sunday, only about 34 hours after we checked in!  The hospital staff was great about helping us cut costs.  I'll write another post about that later - there's too much to include in this one.  Anyway, since I wasn't in any pain and Spencer was doing fabulously, we got out early!

We followed up with our pediatrician yesterday morning at 9:30am.  I was nervous that we would have all kinds of difficulties starting now, with weight loss and/or jaundice.  But all was well!  He was down to 7 lbs. 11 oz. (from 8 lbs. 1 oz. when we left the hospital) but no one seemed concerned.  He looked "a little yellow" to our pediatrician, but since higher levels of bilirubin show up lower on the body, she said where his color was looked just fine!  We'll go back for another weight check on Thursday and assuming that he is gaining weight, we will go back when he is two weeks old!

It's amazing how the stress level is different this time around.  Yes, we did have problems with Miles's health starting out.  But just all in all, I'm just not panicked about things.

He has started having REALLY soaking wet diapers since my milk came in.  He's very different from Miles in this one way, for sure - he almost ALWAYS sprays pee everywhere when I'm changing him!  I can count on one hand the number of times I've been peed on by Miles his entire life.  His skin color is looking really good today, too.  He slept great last night after nursing every hour (on the hour) in the evening.

I'm hoping to get some good pictures of me holding him today.  So far, I haven't had a shower yet or didn't get to fully get ready, so I haven't wanted pictures taken.  Perhaps the stars will line up today!