1 week and 5 days old

Wednesday, February 26th, 2014

6 days old

Thursday, February 20th, 2014

This face! He used to always make this funny face! It was hilarious, especially when trying to breastfeed. They say you should wait until the baby has his mouth open really wide, like in a yawn, and then latch him on. This was impossible to do with Mars because he would make this little "o" with his mouth. 

4 days old

Tuesday, February 18th, 2014

At this time, we had been home for about three days. I remember the first few days being stressful because my milk had not come in yet, and he had not pooped for a few days (we later realized this was because all his poop came out during labor). We first met with a pediatrician that was convenient for us in terms of location, but we ended up not agreeing with him on some things. We eventually had to break up with him for the excellent pediatricians at UCSF, where we returned for weight checks almost all week.

I remember we did not sleep very much because he did not want to be put down so one of us was always holding him. I remember just telling myself that there will be no sleep tonight and I would stay up until 5am, holding him and happily watching him sleep. Eventually, I'd start falling asleep and then it'd be J's turn. I think the first time my milk came in, he had the biggest meal of his life and we were all able to sleep just a little bit more. 

Everyone warned us about not being able to sleep and to be prepared to be exhausted, but I didn't see it that way at all. I loved staying up with him and didn't mind the lack of sleep. I was just happy to finally be able to hold this little baby in my arms. :)

2 hours old

In two days, Mars will be three months old. As far as I'm concerned, time stood still when we had him and it's still February... at least that's what it feels like! Where did the time go? Is it already May? 

After three months of blog-vacation, I think I'm ready to come out of hiding and start sifting through the thousands of photos we've taken. I want to try to document the timeline of his early years as much as I can... I guess it just depends on how often he allows me to actually get on the computer to get something done! (FYI, it's taken almost three hours to write this much)...

Here he is, just 2 hours old on the day of his birth on Friday, February 14th, 2014:

Labor was amazing even if he was breech! Everything went smoothly, and in this picture you can see that he came out with really long fingernails! What you can't see is that he also came out with a full head of hair!

1 month old

I can't believe it has already been a month since baby M came into our world!

We are getting the hang of things and not sleeping is not as exhausting as I thought it'd be. It kind of just reminds me of when I lived in Taipei and stayed up every night. I guess all that non-sleep really had a purpose after all!

Here is our little one moments after he was born:

And here he is at one month:

40 weeks, 5 days

On Thursday, February 13th, I went into labor! 

It started with mild contractions at 4am and then slowly they got more intense throughout the day. At around 8:00pm, we headed over to the hospital, as they were 3 minutes apart. 

After getting to the hospital, we were put in this awful triage room for three hours and laboring there was the worst. Eventually, we were moved to a beautiful birthing suite where I was able to relax in a hot tub. 

The next morning, around 9am, I was fully dilated and ready to push. We started in the birthing suite and moved to an OR once I got closer. After two hours of pushing,  at 11:34am, our little Mars came into this world weighing at 7 pounds and 6 ounces, measuring at 20 inches long!

I cannot even begin to describe how it felt and how it feels now. I am in absolute LOVE with this little baby and no words or photos I can possibly post here will do it justice. We are just so in love! :)

40 weeks, 1 day

Baby was due yesterday!

Right now, we're just waiting... This morning I had some contractions about 20 minutes apart, but they went away. In between contractions, I told J to go to work, but during, I told him to stay home. So he's home now and we just got back from a walk to the store.