The Schoenholtz Family: Jacob Alexander Schoenholtz

November 16, 2010, we welcomed Jacob Alexander into our family! However, the story begins on November 15th because baby #2 was not in any rush to be born, just like his big brother almost 4 years ago. After having regular manageable contractions for almost 5 hours, Steve and I decided to head to the hospital. Since I wasn't in "active labor", we spent a few hours walking the hall and even tried the whirlpool and ball to get things moving. Believe it or not, this is exactly what I was hoping for! Since I was induced with Ethan, I was in bed for the whole labor process and this time I really wanted to experience labor. Auntie Jamie and Grandma Jan arrived and we hunkered down to see how fast things would start to move. Well, the contractions certainly got pretty uncomfortable, but still weren't making much of a difference in delivering our bundle of joy. The nurses kept commenting that it was more like a first baby labor since things were taking so long. At 11 I was still only 5 cm and my OB told me it was time to commit to delivering or go home. Basically, I had gone into this declaring that I would not have my labor induced because I wanted my body to decide when it was time to have this baby. Unfortunately, my body couldn't make up it's mind so after 11 hours of labor, I committed to delivery and they broke my water for me. I'll spare you the details, but at that time it was presented to me that Jacob would have to go straight to the neonatologist instead of coming straight to me after he was born. This was yet another declaration that I had made because it took almost 20 minutes for me to see Ethan after his arrival. More than anything I wanted this baby to come straight to me so that the first thing he felt in our world was his mom and not Dr's hands with rubber gloves. But Dr's with rubber gloves it was to be and there was nothing to be done about it. In less than an hour both of my declarations were overruled and then the epidural didn't work right! I maintained all feeling on my right side which sucked to say the least. I was pretty much a disaster at this point, but the plan was to rest for a few hours (after they redid my epidural) before the big event of delivery was upon us. Mom and Jamie went home (Linda was already there with Ethan), Steve got in his PJs and they turned out the lights. Well of course that's when things decided to really get going so after almost no rest, Jacob made his way into the world at 4:09 am!! The relief and excitement over his arrival was absolutely unbelievable. I get teary eyed just thinking of how happy we were to finally meet this little guy! We'd been expecting a giant baby (Ethan was just 6 lbs 14 oz) but he weighed in at a very reasonable 7 lbs 12 oz. As it was with Ethan, it took much longer than I would have liked for me to get to hold him. I kept asking "when can I hold him?" and kept being put off but when the moment finally arrived, it was indescribable. Nothing that had happened up to that point mattered even one tiny bit. There was my little guy and he was just perfect.

The gratuitous postpartum family photo. I love all the fluids they pump you with to make you extra pretty at one of the most important moments of your life. And it was almost 5 am. See how he's got his right hand at his mouth? I think he was doing that all the time in my belly and he is still a big fan of it today. On day 4, he got those fingers in his mouth and soothed himself to sleep. It looks like we're going to have another finger sucker on our hands!

After he was cleaned up, one of the nurses gave him this mowhawk. He looked like such a bad ass.

Meeting Auntie Jamie!!

Look at all those perfect little toes.

Grandma Jan with her 3rd grandchild.

Great Auntie Linda!! We could not have done this without her. She took great care of Ethan for us and made sure we didn't have to worry about him while we were away from home. It was a huge relief to us and we are so thankful.

Steve went to pick up Ethan and bring him to meet Jacob and his class had made a sign welcoming the baby. We still hadn't named him at that point so he was just "baby boy". We really had a hard time with this one! We love Jacob now, but all day we were trying out different names.

I love my husband dearly, but could have killed him when he returned to the hospital with Ethan and pizza but without our camera. GJ did take a few pictures, but we don't have any good ones of the boys meeting. Ethan was very uncertain of the whole situation as we suspected he might be. I was in bed and GJ was sitting in a chair next to me and he bee-lined for grandma. He did climb up in bed with me and we had pizza together so it was a good visit but he wasn't terribly excited about Jacob. He was excited to open this book from the hospital. Technically, it was for Jacob, but we didn't think he'd mind.

Our first family portrait!

On Thursday morning, it was finally time to go home. We felt that it was a good amount of time in the hospital for us. We were ready to go home, but not dying to leave either. It was fun to dress the little man for the big trip.