lazarus's first day

Once I got to hold Lazarus again, I tried feeding him right away. I was having difficulty getting him to latch, so I used a nipple shield, although I now regret not trying harder without it first. Hopefully we'll get him weaned off of it soon anyway. Other than his sucking his lips in, he's been a great little nurser. Papa brought Evalana in to see Lazarus, which was so much fun. She was very excited to see her brother. Then Grandma Kidd arrived and got to see Lazarus, too. Then it was time to change rooms (from a delivery room to a postnatal room), so they took our stuff and headed down the hall while Joshua held Lazarus and the nurse helped me get cleaned up. And, thankfully, she finally took that painful hep lock out, even though she said it was supposed to stay in for several more hours. Then we walked to our room (and the nurses acted amazed that i was walking rather than riding), where Evalana was sound asleep in Grandma's arms. Pretty soon the nurses started coming in. They knew we didn't want to do most of the newborn vaccinations and procedures, so I signed another form for that. Then they told us that babies over 4000 grams needed to have their blood sugar tested at least three times. We hadn't heard anything about this before, so we asked some more questions. Lazarus was only 24 grams (equal to the weight of 24 dollar bills) over the weight that they wouldn't even consider his blood sugar, and, if his sugar was low, then they wanted to give him sugar formula to fix it, which didn't sound very good to me either. So we told them we'd pass on that as well. Then the nurse took his temperature and said he needed to go to the warmer. The other times they'd taken his temperature while he was still on me, but she wanted him laying in the crib to do it, and this time his temperature was low. I told her I'd like to try holding him on me instead, so she agreed to let him lay skin-to-skin on me with some warm blankets. When she came back to check his temperature, he was plenty warm. The only other thing we got in "trouble" for was that he was very difficult to wake up and convince to eat when it wasn't his idea.
Papa, Gigi, and my mom all went home to get some sleep. When Evalana woke up we had some breakfast. Then she was ready to go home with Grandma, too. Tompa and Grandma Nancy finally got the news that Lazarus was here (since something had gotten confused with the 4am texting). Aunt Michelle came for a visit, then Tompa and Grandma Nancy, then Uncle Alex and Aunt Bridgett. Then Gigi came to hold Lazarus while I took a nap and Joshua watched TV. Papa went to pick up Aunt Kristen and Noah from where Uncle Bill was taking them in Neosho. Then Grandma Mo and Grandpa Greg came to visit. Grandma Kidd and Evalana came. And then Papa, Aunt Kristen, and Noah all arrived. The room was a little small for wild little ones, so they soon left to go to dinner and home for the evening. Aunt Michelle came for another visit after work, and Tompa and Grandma Nancy came over after the KU game. And then it was bedtime. Lazarus didn't like to be put down, so Joshua and I took turns holding him. I loved my sweet cuddle time with my new little boy. Joshua went with Lazarus every time he had to leave the room (to be weighed or whatever), so Lazarus was never out of our sight, which both Joshua and I liked. We had told everyone that we were wanting to leave that next morning, so they did a great job of helping us check everything off our discharge list and get all of Lazarus's stuff finished up. Lazarus got his hearing test and also his heel prick PKU test, which Lazarus even slept through. And we were out of there and headed home at 10am. And Lazarus slept on the ride, which was wonderful compared to Evalana's screaming on every infant car ride. When we got home, we got a great welcome from Noah, Evalana, Aunt Kristen, Papa, Gigi, and Grandma Kidd. They had worked so hard to clean and cook for us, and Evalana even did great on her first night away from me. I'm so thankful for our wonderful family and our new baby boy.
A little more on the labor experience at http://100babies.blogspot.com/2010/12/labor-thoughts.html.