John and I took turns taking photos the week we were at the hospital when Jocelyn was born. As I share some of them with you, I thought I would share a bit of the story of that week as well. Forgive my writing as I’m not getting much sleep these days! Or just skip ahead to the photos. That’s what I would do!

Our baby was supposed to come on July 27th at 1:00 PM during a planned C-section. Our first child, Miles, was breach, so that threw our original plans for a natural birth out the window and he came via emergency c-section. So for this baby, we took all things into consideration and decided to renew our membership to the c-section club with a planned c-section one week before our August 2nd due date. When will I ever learn that life rarely goes as planned?

On Sunday morning, July 25th, around 11 AM, I started having contractions about thirty minutes apart. We figured they were nothing. We REALLY wanted to have our delivery on our planned date because we LOVE our doctor and really wanted him to be the one to do it. So the whole day, I continued to contract and John and I continued to just be in denial that they could possibly be the real thing. I forced myself to ignore the dirty floors I wanted so badly to scrub and just rest, hoping to hold off labor.

Well, long story short, as the contractions creeped closer and closer together (and John ran to the studio to hurry up and get some last minute work done) we ended up calling our babysitter over at 2 AM so we could head to the hospital when my contractions were 3 minutes apart. (Things would have gone a lot smoother had I just given up and went earlier. Duh!) As we drove in darkness to the hospital, me bracing myself every few minutes for contractions as I texted my friends and tweeted, it felt JUST like Miles’ birth, minus the snow (and twitter.) It was such a weird feeling of deja vu. Had I not been having such intense contractions, I think I would have enjoyed the excitement of getting to meet our baby soon. To be honest though, I think I was just about as freaked out as I was the first time we made that trip with Miles still in my belly.

We didn’t get to have our regular OB to perform the surgery, but Dr. Garner, the OB that was supposed to do Miles’ section three and a half years ago, was on call that night, so we did feel good knowing it was an OB we trusted. She was absolutely wonderful. It really is amazing how even though everyone in the operating room that night had already seen a baby born a handful of times already that evening, still acted like our baby was the first baby to ever be born. The excitement and anticipation of awaiting the news of whether we had a boy or girl was amazing as well. I wish I could relive those moments right before knowing the sex over and over. It was like every Christmas morning all compressed into one moment. Waiting to find out the sex isn’t for everybody, but for me, it was an awesome moment and I’m so glad John talked me into waiting to find out for this baby.

So of course, as you already know, they told us we were having a girl and in that moment I was so overcome with emotion. I cried happy tears and will never be able to explain the wave of feelings that passed through me in that moment. There is just something about a baby girl… Again, I just can’t explain it. John was so zen. He said that after all that waiting, to watch my reaction of the news was worth all the waiting. We were, and still are, in total shock that we have a sweet baby girl in our life. I’ll blog more on my feelings about raising a girl later. For now, how about I shush, and share with you some of the photos John and I took from Jocelyn’s birth week?

Here’s proud daddy, looking so hot in his scrubs.

The time we spent in recovery, right after the surgery was a really intimate and precious time for us. It was just me, John and a nurse and we got to snuggle our brand new Jocelyn and I got to nurse her for the first time, which was magical. (I didn’t get to see Miles until the next day since he was in the NICU when he was born, so this special time with our baby, right away after she was born, blew our minds!)

Once we were settled in our room, here was my view.

My recovery this time was AMAZINGLY so much better than my first c-section. I was up and around, even going for walks outside and getting my own ice packs in the middle of the night. I was so incredibly thankful for that and it made our hospital stay a nice and intimate time to get to know our new baby.

Looking back at these photos of Jocelyn, I realize how many different faces she has.

LOVE her hair here and she has the most perfect little rosebud lips. I kiss them 100 times a day.

She looks like a totally different baby in all of these photos!

First Self timer family portrait, minus Miles. We haven’t gotten a family photo of all of us yet. Miles has been too excited, running around, to get one of the four of us. (I have video though of him being crazy adorable upon first meeting his sister, so hopefully soon I”ll be able to get that rolling soon.) I LOVE this photo of John and I think that photo of Jocelyn looks exactly like me as a baby. Though she has John’s pink skin tone, not my more olive/yellow tone. It will be fascinating to see who she ends up favoring after a few more months.

Here’s my sweet and stoic dad, who came by to visit just about everyday.

Jocelyn has the softest hair all over her body. She is so snuggly, just like a teeny tiny puppy.

To say my mom is excited, is an understatement. The day I had the C-section John had to run home to wrap some things up at the house for Miles, So I was at the hospital alone. My mom stayed all day and changed Jocelyn’s diaper, brought her to me so I could feed her and burped her. I think she was in heaven.

This is my mom’s sister, my aunt Joan. She doesn’t get a chance to get to Fort Wayne very often so it meant so much that she could visit. I LOVE this photo.

We were showered with gifts and wonderful visitors during our hospital stay. We had no idea people would be this excited over a second baby. We felt like first time parents all over again! (In more ways than one, actually.) I wish I had taken a photo of my very favorite thing at Dupont Hospital: their chocolate frozen yogurt! It’s SOOOOOO freaking good but you can only get it if you are a patient there. (Trust me, I have already tried to get a fix this week!) I would order it at 11 PM at night to reward myself for enduring an ouchy nursing session. The hospital is such a utopia that it really doesn’t prepare you for going home and having all hell break lose when you are on your own. I swear, Dupont Hospital should send you home with at least a pint of their magical frozen yogurt to get you through at least one night on your own!

How adorable is John? He was smitten the whole week, and still is, of course. We were both so emotional during those first days after she was born that every once in a while we would just look at each other and start telling each other how blessed we felt to have each other and our family and we would have to stop because we would get all choked up. He is such an amazing partner in this whole parenting journey we are on together.

My girlfriend Gail loves this photo so I had to include it. We had our celebration dinner (a “fancy” dinner the hospital gives you) on the last night of our hospital stay and instead of just laying her in her bassinet, we propped her up in her boppy on the bed so she could sit with us at dinner. She is just positively SMOOSHY!

We brought home the cake they gave us for our celebration dinner and had a little birthday party for Jocelyn and let Miles blow out the candle.

Miles LOVES parties and even more so, LOVES cake, so it was the perfect way to get things off to a good start as life as a big brother. He has been doing really great, by the way. He’s been ULTRA excited about all the visitors and all the super thoughtful gifts he has been getting, so he was VERY hyper the week we got home. He’s starting to chill out now that the gifts and guests are slowing down and he tells EVERYBODY he meets that he’s a big brother. He even takes stuffed animals and sets up little arrangements of our family, pointing out which one of us is each animal. It’s so precious.

So that’s our first week of life with our new baby girl. It took me a while to get this blog post up because I’m seriously nursing ALL the time. If I’m not nursing, I’m sleeping or doing laundry. Whew! I suppose my brain forgot how demanding the newborn days are so I would be open to doing this it all over again! We are still working on getting our parenting sea legs. I think it’s going to take a while longer before we get into a normal flow, but even though we are exhausted, we still have energy to love on our kiddos. Despite all the lack of sleep, it’s still such a precious time.

Thank you to all the well wishers out there! We are feeling so totally blessed to have our beautiful and healthy baby girl in our life. Oh, one more thing. Since I Just found out our baby is a girl, I’m now trying to figure out how to get this little girl outfitted in girly clothes and switch her closet from blue and green to pink and purple. I’m not sure what I should focus on getting first and I’m wondering how soon I’ll need warmer clothes and in what size. Any shopping advice would be greatly appreciated!