It really has. Seven days since my little angel fought his way into the world. Really, I should have expected the delivery to be rough considering how much of a wiggle worm William was even before he was born...
February 25 around 2-3 am I dragged Seth out of bed to go to the hospital. I have to admit, there is no better time to be rushing to the hospital in the DC area than the middle of the night. No traffic, we made all of our lights, and best of all Seth wasn't stuck downtown in rush hour traffic! We got there just when we were 'supposed' to and all the nurses were pretty impressed that we hadn't shown up six hours early or something like that. Things had moved along fairly quickly and I was sure that it would be a nice and easy textbook delivery.
Alas, the first little speed bump came when they called down for the anesthesiologist. Mind you, it was 3am and this was a small county hospital. They only had one present on the night shift and he was unfortunately dealing with a situation in the ER- and it was too late in the delivery process to give me the IV fed painkillers or else William would get too high of a dose. If there's one thing I firmly believe it's that painkillers and modern medicine are a gift from God and there are no points for going au natural! It took an eternity, and my OB was talking about just inducing me to speed things along without drugs when the on call anesthesiologist arrived literally just in time to drug me up.

And thank goodness he did! Stubborn as ever, William took his sweet time and a good seven hours later I went in for an emergency C section. Skull: 0, Pelvis: 1. We
had been warned that William was big when we got the ultrasounds to check on his heart! I wasn't altogether there mentally at this point, but after a bit of touch and go William was born at 11:52am weighing in at 9lbs, 1 ounce, and 20.5 inches tall!

I got to see him briefly while I was still completely out of it, gave him a kiss, and then they whisked him off to the nursery. It wasn't quite the ICU since the county hospital didn't have the really equipment for specialized cases, but it was as close as it got there. Constant surveillance and hooked up to several monitors and machines and all that. Meanwhile, the doctors put me back together and Seth got to play photographer for the next day while I was tied up with IVs and couldn't leave my bed either! It was really hard not being able to see him, but Seth brought me pictures and little video clips every time he went to see him. You can see there that he has quite the goose egg and bruised head, poor guy. Thankfully it went down quickly and the bruises faded though. The doctors and nurses there were really top notch.

I finally got see and hold little William the next day and it just made everything absolutely worth it. No matter how much not-fun the entire process was and recovery is, I would do it again in a heartbeat just to hold him in my arms and feel that unconditional love between us.

Our First Family Photo

William and Daddy Bonding

It's interesting to see what features William inherited from who. To be honest, I can rarely see similarities between babies and their parents, but I think William actually has some distinct markers. He definitely gets his dark hair and eyes from Seth, though Seth's dad claims his eye shape is from me. His ears though are definitely from me. William and I have disconnected lobes while Seth doesn't. :) Most notably though, William shares my monkey toes! Seth was very impressed when William tried to grab his finger with his toes. All in all, he's ours and perfect! I can't wait to see how he grows up.

William, Meet Mr. Parrot!

On Wednesday we finally got to go home! The hospital staff were amazing and I wish I could have taken them home with me, but I was grateful to finally be going home even if it meant starting the big scary job of being 100% responsible for William at all hours of the day and night. And it IS all hours! I have no idea how people who have jobs to worry about do it. I'm lucky that Seth is able to take several days off and that Caroline is going to be coming when he has to start going back into work. I'm sure things will settle down into a routine soon enough, and it'll definitely be easier once I'm completely healed from the C-section, but it's still a big job. AnnaMarie, I don't envy you having twins as well as the girls!


Grandpa got to come down and visit too, which made me really happy. William's middle name, Kemp, comes from him and it was awesome to see all three generations of the Pease family together and know that William is going to carry on the family name and legacy.