A week after giving birth, and Amanda looks great!!

Bath time!!!

And he loved snuggling in the towel afterwards

His first story!!

Today Micaiah was delighted to hear "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You Hear?" for the first time out of the womb, and finally see the pictures! (He heard it a lot in utero...3 times a day minimum thanks to daycare!)

He seriously really liked it, too!

Maybe it's just 'cause I'm his dad...

but I think he's wicked cute....

His 1st time in the Dr. Sears sling

And the TaylorMade sling

Nap Time!

One of the great things about having a new baby here!!

Gramma and Grampa B's visit on Saturday!

First Postpartum Visit

Baby's first postpartum visit.

All seems well! He's just got to start sleeping less and eating more!

Our birth story

It all began on Wednesday, Aug. 15. Amanda had 2 days left at the Daycare Center, and so she put in an 8-hour day in the 2-year old room. Word of advice from Amanda: if you're 9 months pregnant and still working, and people offer to let you go home and rest, listen to them. In her case, a stomach bug has been going around, and she thought she was getting waves of stomach pain related to that. We got home at 5:00, and at 5:30 she realied that the stomach cramping was happening every 5 minutes on the dot. So she sent me on a quick run to Kinney's just in case, as we'd need the supplies for birthing eventually, whether it happened today or in 2 weeks; we had been planning on getting all of this over the weekend, as it still left time before the due date.

At around 7:30 or so we realized that this was more than a stomach bug...it was at very least false labor and possibly the real thing!

We waited until we were sure to call Regina, our Midwife. She talked to Amanda over the phone for a number of contractions and then felt it was soon enough that she was coming over.

She got there at about 3 am with the Midwifery bag of goodies with all the essentials for birth, such as the Doppler for listening to the heartbeat, tools for suturing a tear, etc.

Lesli, a Midwife who we know who is finishing her training and needed to be at 3 more births to officially finish came early in the morning. It was so great of them - they actually stayed until after the baby was born that night!

Lesli and Regina

With this happening 2 weeks earlier than we had been expecting, there were a few things we hadn't taken care of...most importantly, cleaning the towels, washcloths, and sheets for the delivery!! Many thanks to Jill Ludlam for showing up at 7 am to pick up, wash & dry, and bring back the towels, plus the much needed TP!!!! We ALL really appreciated it!! Also for the food that you dropped off later in the day - we all enjoyed it both before and after the delivery!
As time went on, labor progressed and progressed. I'll spare you all of the gory details - it's labor you know.

Here's Amanda going through a contraction, and me smiling like a goof.

The pushing stage lasted about 1 hour, and then, 27 hours from when we realized they were really contractions, with no medicines for pain, induction, or anything, we had a baby boy!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the world, Little Man!

Yep, that's right, on August 16, 2007, at 8:03 pm, after 27 hours of unmedicated labor, Micaiah Thomas Balonek was born in our home in Potsdam, NY!

Later today I'll post more about the birth itself, and of course more pics of little Micaiah! For now, I've gotta head out (laundry's done). :)