It’s 3:00am and I’m writing this blog post. I’m alert and happy to have a chance to write a bit about our first week with our second son. I hope it serves other parents as an indication of what to expect.
Meet Roman
Our second son, Romas Algis Warner (otherwise known as Roman), is now eight days old and was born healthy and happy at a whopping 9lbs 11oz.
The Birth
I had fallen asleep in the chair while watching Saturday Night Live. It was around 4am when my wife woke me up and said “I think I might be having contractions, but I’m not sure.”
In my groggy stupor, I said “ok, let me know if they get worse.” and I proceeded to get up and go to bed. Obviously, I wasn’t fully awake and the magnitude of what she had said was lost on me.
A while later she came into the bedroom and said “I think we need to go to the hospital.” It finally hit me!
I jumped out of bed and collected all the things we’d need, including our 22 month old son. We woke him up as slowly and calmly as we could and got him settled in the car.
The hospital is close to our house and I dropped my wife off at the main entrance so i could bring our son to Grandma’s house and then return.
We’ve had a good laugh at what people must have thought of me dropping off my wife who was in labor and then speeding away, but hey, you do what you have to do!
The Hospital Stay
Fast forward to 2:09pm and there he was! Little Roman, our second son. My wife did an awesome job, really proud of her!
Now we have kids…plural. It still seems odd saying that.
I can’t say enough about the Birthing Unit nurses and how wonderful they were to the both of us and it only got better when we were transferred to the Mother/Baby Unit.
Security was in full swing and they don’t mess around, much to the chagrin of my sister-in-law when she arrived and wanted to see us before I had given her the secret security code. The guards there don’t care how much you love your family members…no code, no entrance.
Older Brother Meets Baby
This part was a bit rough for our older son. He’s 22 months and didn’t really understand what was going on when we brought him to the room to see Mommy and the baby.
He was more interested in escaping the room and exploring the hospital than seeing this little baby. Poor guy also missed his nap time that day and that DID NOT help;)
So, it was a quick meeting there and we figured it was best to wait to really introduce him until after we got back home.
That meeting went a bit better and he showed some interest in baby, and even approached him to take a closer look, and because he’s not quite learned that hitting is not something “big boys” do, he tried to give Roman a little love tap which was thwarted by Daddy.
In the past week he has succeeded in taking baby’s binky a couple times, and today grabbed his supplemental formula bottle and took a swig.
Luckily, it didn’t taste too good and he quickly ignored it;)
He’s getting there slowly but surely. I know because he gave him a kiss goodnight earlier tonight:)
The Icky Part
If you’re not a parent yet, or you’re a parent who’s forgotten, I have to tell you that when the umbilical cord finally fell off last night, I drew a sign of relief.
It smells bad. Really bad. Especially for someone like me who is kind of sensitive to funky smells. I don’t know why, it’s just my thing and having to smell that nastiness when holding him, changing him, or otherwise loving him was not my favorite part of the week.
But you do what you need to do. Love conquers all, even stinkyness.
The Change in Schedules
When we had our first son, everyone kept telling us “sleep when the baby sleeps” and two years ago, that was next to impossible for me.
I (used to be) very regimented in my daily schedule, but I’ve learned to let all of that go. I had to. It’s the only way to keep your sanity as a parent.
Even though this time around we have two children to keep track of, it somehow seems a little easier this past week and that’s probably due to the fact that I can now sleep in 15, 30, and 60 minute increments if I need to and be satisfied with that.
We’ve got a good groove going now and are actually getting sleep in pretty chunks of 2-4 hours a few times a day, which is working pretty good.
Of course, we have had the support of family to help watch our older son during the day, especially for the first few days, and that helped give us time to learn Roman’s schedule.
And to top it all off, I have actually found time to catch up on work projects yesterday and today, so I’m feeling good about that too.
