Christian Jacob Malie

Our baby boy finally arrived!!!

Christian Jacob Malie joined our family on January 22, 2013 - Grammy's birthday!

This was the day before I had him, my last belly pic:

I went in for my 39 week appointment on the 22nd.  I was dilated to a 3 and the OB/GYN stripped my membranes.  We set up an appointment to be induced the next morning and I was on my way.  About an hour after I left his office, I started having contractions.  I was Group B Strep positive and was worried that I wouldn't get my antibiotic in time if I waited too long to go in to the hospital.  My contractions were about 5 minutes apart, I called Dr. Gatherum's office and he said to just come in!  So we got our bags packed, got cleaned up and went to the hospital.  We got there around 2:00 and they admitted me.  After I got my epidural, it wasn't working like I hoped it would.  My legs were numb but I could still feel all of the contractions - no bueno.  The nurse anesthetist came back and gave me a stronger dose.  It did the trick!  But I started feeling a little nauseous and told the nurse.  She checked my blood pressure and it had dropped a lot and it was affecting the baby.  She gave me the oxygen mask and had me roll to my side.  Just a couple of minutes later, I started feeling pressure and she checked me.  I was ready to push!  I pushed through three contractions and little Christian was here!  I had him at 5:20 pm.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around Christian's neck, but luckily it didn't cause any problems.  He came too fast for me to get both doses of the antibiotic (I just got the first one) so they had us stay an extra night at the hospital to monitor the baby and make sure he didn't get the Group B Strep from me, which he didn't.

He was 7 lbs, 1 oz and 18.5 inches long.

He's my smallest baby, despite the fact that I was pregnant with him the longest!  (I had Emmy 10 days early, Kate 9 days early and Christian 5 days early).

Welcome to the world, baby Christian!

We named him Christian because that was Jake's birth name (we have his Chilean passport from when he was adopted and brought over to the USA).  We thought it was kind of special :)

Oh how I love this boy

Our first family picture with Christian!

It was so awesome.  Right after I had him, they had me pull up my gown so they could lay the baby right on my tummy with skin-to-skin contact.  He had a blanket on top to keep him warm, but I loved the skin-to-skin contact.  They left us like that for about two hours (apparently it was a pretty busy night in Labor and Delivery).  They didn't weigh him, wash him, put on a diaper, nothing.  We, and by "we" I mean I :), got to just hold him and cuddle him and love him for two hours without anyone bugging us.  I loved it.

Jake and I with Christian after they cleaned him up:

Sweet baby!

 We absolutely adore this boy