This past Wednesday (August 13, 2014) we welcomed our newest munchkin! We named him Ethan Thadddaeus (meaning strong and courageous). He was born eager to explore anything and everything he could grasp and immediately began looking for food. (Makes sense - he was 9lbs and 21.5in! Our heaviest baby yet, though I'm fairly sure that he is the same length as both Chloe & Zachary at birth.)
We are so happy he is here and I'm so relieved to have labor and the hospital stay behind us. It is just so good to be home and all together! Dwight was given the week off to help me recover and adjust and our church family is being amazingly supportive with meals and offering their homes for visits if I need to get a change of scenery, rest, or a place to bring the kids to play. I've quietly struggled with PPD/months of achy weepyiness following the births of my other children and so having practical help (these women are great cooks, y'all!) and lots of prayer and support from our small group & ss class has been really really precious to me! I haven't experienced the feelings of inadequacy yet (just a lot of love!), and have been able to actually sleep this time around (I always left the hospital experiencing hives that didn't go away for months and months...after Ella the only way I could find relief until I began doing tea detoxes was to sleep with ice packs - not fun and made it cold for Dwight too! Haha! Thankfully after cutting legumes/soy from my diet, they vanished. I'm so thankful that I haven't had a single hive yet since Ethan's birth! Yay! That was also the reason behind my desiring a fully unmedicated birth this time around...just to see if that would help too. Malory was an amazing doula and the staff at Methodist is incredible and so sweet. And Dwight is such a sweetheart! As I was in the final minutes of labor I was squeezing his hand super hard...enough to cause all kinds of cracking noises, but he didn't mind. I'm just glad I didn't break anything! :-P) I love him and each of our sweet babies so much!
This little guy has had several visitors too! A pastor from our church came to the hospital, my mom and brothers were able to stop in at the hospital for a bit (worked out great timing wise for them because they were already in town for something unrelated! Ethan's a helpful guy already! ;-D), and then my sister & cousin came to the area for some fun time and were able to swing by the house just after we got home. :-)
We are adjusting well and the kids are all doing great! We had a rough couple of days recovering from lack of normalcy, being overly tired, and too many snacks... but all is better now. :-) They adore their newest playmate and I'm never at a loss for someone eager to hold him. :-) They are loving having daddy around for the week too. Wednesday will be our first day of just the kids and I, so we are soaking up having him here now!
Here are some snapshots from the past week :-D
