The Whole Story...

For those of you who want more details I am trying to sort through pictures and details and put together a coherant Tale of Gus Gus. Here goes...
After a night of very little sleep we left for the hospital at 6:45 in hopes of getting there early enough for a "new room". Alas, we were not successful. BUT the Labor Fates did have mercy when it came to nurses. We initially had Judy who was a wonderful Grandmotherly-type woman and put me at ease.
I was apparently already in early labor and having some regular contractions so they put the gel in to kick it into higher gear and into higher gear did we go! Fast and furious. They told me that there would be a surge and that it would die-off after about a half-hour, I wasn't convinced about the dying-off part of the equation so we ordered the pain meds right away and they came right away. The rest of the story is much less painful as a result, for me, for everyone else in the room and probably for you too.
David and I took it easy, read Peralandra, did cross-word puzzles and tried to wrap our heads around this whole parenting THREE children thing. My mom came and shortly afterward things began to move more quickly. The doc decided to rupture my membranes and went to find the nurse to do so but while he was gone they decided to erupt on their own. In reality it was a very small eruption but still clear what had happened. This was at about 1:15. I immediately tried to get into my happy place because I knew that delivery was immanent now and this being my first epidural I thought it better to expect the worse and be prepared for the Ring Of Fire then to move glibly along and be surprised that having a baby causes pain. In the end the pain was very endurable and Gus was born at 1:35 after I pushed 1 and a half pushes. When the doc checked to see if I was fully dilated Gus' head was crowning. So the head was the one push and the shoulders were the half push.
David got to joyfully announce the sex (there was no second guessing himself this time, it was obvious), they put Gus straight on my chest where I got to ask about 15 times in one minute if anyone else was worried that he was so little and so blue and then he peed all over me. I think he was marking his territory.
Everyone keeps telling me that 8.2 is not that small of a baby but having a kid who's face doesn't ooze to one side because they are so fat is just throwing me off.
He immediately proved his nursing prowess in spite of the fact that he had swollen and bruised lips because apparently he was pushed down so fast once my water broke. His lips took several hours to recover from the shock and the bruising looked like a gotee for a day or two.
After his arrival David and my mom called and called while Gus and I ate and ate. In the evening the Trammas and FK Marsh brought the kids down to the hosital for the first meeting. Moses was quite shy initially (shocker!) and took a little while to reassure him that mommy was still mommy, even in a hospital. Lily saw the baby and immediately cooed and ooed and didn't get weirded out until she saw my helploc - then she lost it and needed her daddy. The next days visit went much better. Moses speaks about Gus in a very, very high and sqeaky voice - "he's the cutest baby that I've never seen!"
After the kids visit in the morning David spent the afternoon at the mechanics because of course the van wouldn't start...but I don't really want to relive that part of the story so I'll just say that it's over and fixed and it wasn't terribly expensive.
We FINALLY got to leave at exactly 48 hours, to the minute, after Gus emerged. We made it home in one piece in spite of the drive over the mountain with me lying flat on my back to mitigate the spinal headache that is making writing this post a very slow process. We had birthday cake and singing and kissing and hugging in spades and life has basically been great since being home. Gus did decide that he wanted to party from 10 pm - 5 am last night but we are all hoping that the arrival of The Milk today will help that party be the ONLY party of its sort. Today we're just trying to wait out the spinal headache, shower, write a post and deal with The Milk. Ambitious enough for me!
It is wonderful to be home, healthy, happy and together.
Sorry it's not a more entertaining post, it really was a very entertaining event, if you can call labor and birth entertaining.