Beautiful Life

It's just us now. The grandma's have left (we miss you!!) and we are on our own! Things are going great so far! Brenan is an ANGEL baby. He's a great little eater and sleeper and he hardly ever cries - except when he has to get his diaper changed or take a bath! But, can you blame him?? Our house is kinda chilly! His belly button fell off last Saturday - so it lasted for about 5 days! I contemplated keeping it and putting it in his memory book but the garbage can was calling for it! Those things are gross and they don't look anything like a belly button. =) His bilirubin levels are normal now and he has already gained back all of his weight plus some! He was 9 lbs 1 oz when he was born. When we left the hospital he was at 8 lbs 7 oz. On Wednesday when I took him in he weighed 9 lbs 5 oz. So he's growing! He is sleeping for 4-6 hour stretches in the night which is fabulous because then I only have to wake up once!! Our house is SO cold in the middle of the night so it's nice to not have to get out of bed too much! He sleeps in his carseat just like Anika did (Keslie would have none of that!). He likes both the swing and bouncer! Anika loved the bouncer but never really got into the swing (which is probably because we had a broken one!) and then Keslie LOVED the swing but didn't like the bouncer so much. This time I have the best of both worlds! I just really love babies and am having SO much fun! I'm so glad that the girls have each other to play with! They have adjusted so well to having a baby come into the house. They love him so much! It's so cute to watch them with him.

For the records (this might be boring!) I wanted to type up the details of his birthday! We went out for a fun dinner on Saturday 11/8. If you haven't tried 5 Guys Burgers and Fries and you live in CT then you really must get out there! There burgers are divine!

When we got home I showered and put on fresh make-up and did my hair because I was determined that I would have pretty hospital pictures like everyone else seems to have. I think my face swells from the IV. I'm not kidding. It didn't help that I showered - I still looked just as scary afterwards! Anyway - here are my last belly shots! Me at 9 months:
I admit I had a bit of a panic on the way to the hospital. There is something different about getting induced! It was weird to be going in to have the baby when I wasn't in labor at all. I was dialated to a 2 when I got there. We went in at 10:30 pm and they got me all set up with an IV and started the induction. I was given some sort of cervix softening gel and that got me up to a 3 and then they started me on pitocin about halfway through the night. I didn't get any sleep because they were coming in to check my blood sugar levels and vitals every half hour!
I never make any progress until they break my water so even with the pitocin I didn't dialate farther than a 4. The doctor didn't want to break my water until he was out of the OR so that happened in the afternoon sometime. I got my lovely epidural right before and had a wonderful anastesiologist! I love going unnatural. =) Haha. The worst part about the epidural is the crazy shakes it gives me! Everything went pretty fast from there. Around 7 the nurse came in and was so laid back about everything that I didn't know what was happening until the Dr. came in and said to push! I thought she was just doing a quick progress check and when she had me push a couple times I thought it was just to give her an idea of where the baby was. The Dr. came in and I pushed 2.5 times and Brenan was out!The worst part about the whole thing was how tired and hungry I was! By the time I got any food it was around 10:45 pm and when I finished I threw it all up! Everyone seems to want to see pics of me with the baby - I really don't have many but here are the few I do have:

The girls sure loved having Grandma Kivett here and then Nana and Papa West! Here are some pictures of their visits!


And a couple extras:

Keslie is sound asleep on my bed right here! She's the queen of cool!

Here is Nathan all suited up for his pedo interview at UCONN today! What a handsome devil!