To Wallace Aaron Daniel, born last monday, May 12.

He must have known how much I didn’t want Pitocin, because labor started naturally three hours before I was scheduled to be induced. It was the start of an extremely difficult labor which lasted 12 hours. Seriously, laboring with him made laboring with Layla look like a cake walk. I pushed three times with her, and she was out. I pushed on and off for a few hours with him, and had zero energy once he was finally out. I’m so glad I had such a patient midwife because it was really her, a nurse, and Justin doing most of the work by the end, because I couldn’t move. (I didn’t have an epidural, but the IV meds had worn off and I couldn’t have more, so between exhaustion and pain, I really couldn’t move).

Just as my doctor predicted, he was a whopper; he weighed 9lb 12.8 oz and was 21.5″ long! So that explains the difficulty laboring with him!

Once he was out, we got to spend a few minutes with him. I was able to nurse him, but the hospital requires blood sugar monitoring for large (or small) babies, and he didn’t make it by one point, so they took him to the NICU. It was devastating to me and Justin, but more excitement was around the corner. Apparently red heads have serious bleeding issues, and when they got me up to use the restroom, I fainted on Justin. That resulted in a plethora of nurses swarming into the room. My heart rate soared and my blood pressure plummeted. I won’t go into details, but what happened next was at least as bad as laboring and pushing painwise. God bless my husband and mother for surviving watching that whole ordeal.

But all that craziness ended in utter joy. Hours later, we were able to see Wallace. Justin had actually gotten to go to the NICU with him to bathe and feed him, but I didn’t really get a good look at him until they brought him back to us that evening. I was a mess, white as a ghost and weaker than anything, but holding my boy made me feel like a million bucks.

Its been ten days, and I’m starting to feel human again. Recovery hasn’t been easy because I’ve had to work on building up blood that I lost, so I’ve been fairly weak, but I’m happy that I have such a great support system. That, and the most beautiful baby boy!

I can’t believe I spent nine months afraid of having a boy. I had these fears of him coming out and me just not having a clue what to do with a male child since I’ve not really been around boys. But when I look at him, I’m so completely in love with him, I can’t imagine life without him.

I want to say thank you to all of my readers who have offered so much support to me before and throughout pregnancy. We had such difficultly conceiving, and when I was able to announce we were expecting, I received such an outpouring of love and support from all of you which made me feel so encouraged. Thank you for keeping up with me throughout this journey. I’m so happy to finally share Wallace with you. Thank you!

And a special thank you to Emilee for taking these great pictures for me! She does such an amazing job! You can see more of her work here.

-Meredith