Introducing Sam!

So yes, it's been so long that we haven't even posted anything about our new baby! Samuel Jeffrey was born on July 31st (6 days early) at 3:02 pm after a very interesting labour experience. We wanted to attempt a VBAC, but with my past history and pelvic shape we had very low expectations that it would be a success. But much to our surprise, it actually worked! Labour was very different from our experience with Amanda (something I wasn't really expecting)...it started out easier, got bad very fast, and then progressed extremely rapidly (i.e., 3 cm to 10 cm in about 20 minutes!). Despite the cord being wrapped tightly around his neck (something we didn't know about until later), the delivery was pretty straightforward and recovery was 100X easier than our previous C-section.

Sam is generally a pretty happy and mellow baby, although he definitely has a temper! Much to our delight he is a better sleeper than Amanda; he was sleeping pretty good stretches (4-5 hours) at a couple of weeks and by 6 weeks was up to 6 hours or so, then 7-8 hours by 8 weeks. However, now at 14 weeks he's regressed a bit...he hit a big growth spurt at 12 weeks and I'm not sure whether it's still going on or whether we won't get our good sleeper back again! We're hoping things will return to normal soon.

One of the best things has been watching how Sam and Amanda interact. Amanda is such a little mommy with him...she talks to him in a high singsong voice and loves to play all kinds of little games with him. She has been a great helper to us, especially to me during the days when things get frustrating! Sam obviously adores Amanda and gazes at her happily for ages. She is often able to calm him down when Jeff or I can't. We were lucky that Amanda didn't have high expectations of what he would be capable of...just one of the nice things about them being over 4 years apart. We can't wait to see how their relationship progresses as he gets bigger!

A few favourite photos are below...or visit the entire Sam Collection on Flickr.
1 day old


13 days old


6.5 weeks


12.5 weeks


And a recent photo of Sam and Amanda together...