Ayden Walter is here!

He's here:)

As you might imagine, I have a lot to say about the last week of our lives! But I can't seem to find the time to write a post! So, you'll get a brief but important one. 

Dave worked a pretty full day on Friday (Jan 16), I was anxious and a little ornery that day, wanted baby to come and wanted Dave to come home:) We went out for Mexican that night and put the kids to bed and were both exhausted. I was going to take a warm bath and relax when my water broke, somewhat dramatically, at home in our bathroom (thank God!) around 8 p.m. We figured we still had plenty of time as I had no contractions, but they started as soon the water broke. Five minutes apart. 

We got to the hospital around 10 p.m. and the contractions just kept ramping up. OB was short-staffed but thankfully my doc was already in the hospital for an induction - yay! Mom and Dad arrived around 10:20 p.m. and Dad went home to watch the kiddos. Things moved quickly. They checked me and I was at 4 cm. I labored for about another hour and it was super intense. When they checked me again, I was at 9 c.m and they started scrambling to set up the room for baby! Kylie arrived just as I was getting ready to push. 

We asked if Kylie would be willing to take photos of the arrival of this babe. I would have never thought of it for the others and was a little scared of the prospect of pictures of a birth...but I also wanted to see if we could capture those special moments that are so fleeting and get missed with all the craziness that happens! She is also the godmother of baby, is a nursing student - she should get credit for it:) - and she is my sis! As you will see, she got some great pics and I am so happy with them. I can't believe that worked out so well, so awesome, thanks Kyles!

So....I pushed for about 20 minutes and at 11:42 p.m. Baby Boy Lenninger was here! He was pretty bruised and beat up from the quick arrival:) Apparently the cord had been around his neck but he had a long cord and she was able to just maneuver it over his head.My favorite moments in life include three times when a babe was put on my chest. The softest, warmest little bundles of pure joy in my arms. There is so much about that moment that just make it unreal and amazing.  The little bruiser weighed in at 8 lbs and 15 oz. and was 21 inches long. He was jaundiced as all our babies are, we had all the blood draws done and thankfully, he hasn't needed photo therapy like Collin had.

Praise God!

Our big boy

He has ridiculous feet and toes!

Another son!

There was some slight trouble with me afterwards. It took awhile for the doc to take care of things that docs take care of after baby arrives. I ended up having a post-partum hemorrhage and they had to give me multiple drugs to try and stop the bleeding. Those drugs then made me sick. They had me NPO  in the event that surgery was needed to stop the bleeding, so I couldn't eat! I needed an ultrasound Saturday morning to check my uterus and after they heard back from the specialists in Madison that it didn't look like there was anything requiring surgery, I was finally free to eat and relax a bit! 

SO happy he is here:)

So we had our baby boy! And that's exactly what they had to put on our wristbands and his record. We had a short list of names that we were not really excited about. Then two days before he was born Dave threw out a couple new ones that we liked. So, we were kind of deciding between those and I told everyone that I didn't want to be rushed. We tried calling him Holden for awhile. Then Dave went home to shower and grab some stuff and came back. He was leaning toward Hayden. The nurses kept laughing at us. We just couldn't pull the trigger on anything. When we were circling around Hayden, Dave nonchalantly threw out Ayden and I had that gut feeling. I liked it (it had been on my lists for previous kiddos, but Dave was never quite on board) and thought it went well with our middle name and the other kids' names. So, we finally decided on Ayden!!! Woo hoo!! And then someone asked us how to spell it. Crap. There are a lot of ways to spell Ayden and we couldn't decide. So, back to Baby Boy Lenninger for awhile. I kept writing out different versions and Dave liked Aiden and I liked Aidan. I wrote out one version with a "y" and so we went with that one:) Good grief. 

Waiting for a name...

One of the jaundice tests

Kate was very interested in everything they did for Ayden and Mommy.
 She got to listen to Ayden's heartbeat, Collin wanted to ride on the bassinet cart:)

He seems like an Ayden:) He looks like David and Kate, has a loud cry but only hates getting diapers and clothes changed, likes to be held (in fact, won't sleep anywhere else at night), likes the swing enough to make it useful during the day, makes a lot of faces while sleeping, has very dark eyes (color to be determined!) tolerates his sister holding him pretty well, is a great eater, is wearing Collin's clothes (has had one new outfit of his own) and fits into some of Collin's newborn, but mostly 3 month clothes right now. He rides in the car seat really well so far (had to bring him in for two blood draws to watch his jaundice). He has long fingers and fingernails and gave himself a nice big scratch on his cheek right away:( I have tried cutting his nails, did five before I nicked his pinky! and keep him in mittens for now.

He has a name:)

He likes to hold his paci in himself:)

They wanted to observe me a little longer for the bleeding and actually wanted to watch Ayden longer as well (turns out I was positive for Group B Strep, but we didn't get enough time for the antibiotics) so we had a total of three nights in the hospital and came home mid-day on Monday, January 19. So, a little scary there at moments but all's well that ends well! I think my recovery is going very well since we've been home.

Kate and Collin love him very much and like to help, though I will say, they are not overly concerned with him yet. Kate is very proud and has colored a million pieces of art with Ayden's name on it:) Collin likes Ayden and has to put his hands on his tummy or tap his head. He seems protective of him. But Collin does seem like he has entered "terrible twos" territory. I'm not sure if it is all the change in the house or what, but he throws fits for things he never did before. And of course he feels like a giant to us now, so handling the crying, flailing 23 month old is hard! He is either fussy or completely goofy and sweet and plays with his toys nicely. So...we'll see how this all continues and how Mommy handles it alone! 

Coming in to meet their brother!

Whoa, what just happened?! 

Welcome home signs from the kids...

Dutifully watching over her brother - "babysitting"

We are so in love. Despite any moments of stress or fussing kids or extreme loudness, Dave and I are smiling at each other, telling each other how amazing our kids are (well, most of the time!). We fully appreciate how fast time will fly and that Ayden will soon be growing and growing and no longer a newborn - we are just soaking up all this time together at this moment. Welcome to our crazy world, your new family Ayden Walter!

Our family of five

More pictures to come, I'm trying to gather them all in one place! Oh, of course, when we arrived home, my laptop (the only one we really use) was giving us lots of problems. Dave ended up taking Collin to LaCrosse one day to take it to Best Buy and after some days without a laptop, we are back in business with a new one!