Welcome Baby Ben!

What an exciting last few days it has been for the Maple Family. On Friday morning, we welcomed the one who will complete our family... Benjamin Richard Maple.

In my last post (written just hours before leaving for the hospital), I mentioned that I was having some stomach pains, and that it was probably just nervous tension. Well, I was wrong. I was having contractions, and they were actually coming on pretty quickly, about 3 to 7 minutes apart. But we went to the hospital as scheduled, and the fact that I was going into labor didn't hurt or hold up anything. After 2 hours of pre-op stuff (blood tests, fetal monitoring and lots of paperwork), I was wheeled into the OR and we were underway.

Our beautiful little boy was born at 11:47 a.m. He weighed in at 7 pounds, 15 oz, and was 21 1/4 inches long. Andrew's first comment as soon as he saw the doctors lift Ben from my stomach was "Whoa, he has A LOT of hair!" And that he does! I was able to see him, hold him and nurse him in that first hour after he was born, which was something I missed out on with Joshua, so that was very special to me. Right from the get-go he was a professional at nursing. It only took a few minutes to get him latched on the first time, and we never looked back. My milk had already come in by the time Ben was 2 days old because he was such a champ.

We ended up staying in the hospital the full 4 days, because my c-section incision had started to drain. It looked for a while that I was going to be going through all of the same nonsense I did with my last incision. But, thankfully, after everything was drained, my incision closed itself back up and everything appears to be just fine. I have been told to take it even easier than a normal C-Section recovery, so I basically have to sit on the couch and do nothing for the next 2 weeks. For anyone who knows me, you know how UNrelaxing that will be! But I also have to take care of myself, so I'm going to have to force myself to let others help me as much as possible.

I have been feeling great, and my pain really hasn't been too horrible. I am so happy to be home and to have my whole family back together again. Please keep us in your prayers over the next few weeks as we adjust to life as a family of 4.