Rhys Jae Lee day 2.
Rhys was born at 3:41pm on Wednesday.
I got induced the evening before, with a foley balloon catheter & pitocin. I spent that whole night having contractions, and after only getting an hr of sleep, I got the epidural at 8am the next day. He came out about 8 hrs later.

I was relatively chill throughout the whole process. I had been waiting anxiously to finally have my baby and wasn't really that nervous about the giving birth part. Brian as my partner in crime was a whole different story. He was probably 100 times more unreliable than I expected him to be throughout the labor/birth.
The second I felt Rhys pop out of my body, I burst into uncontrollable tears and wept like a baby for a good 3 minutes. It was the relief that I finally brought him out into the world and all the emotional torment was over. They took him away right away to have him examined, as there were a team of about 6 or 7 pediatric doctors standing by to check him out, because of his asymmetrical iugr diagnosis. Brian was able to walk over and check Baby out, while I sat there getting my placenta pulled out and stitched up. I looked over to hopefully overhear that there was nothing wrong with him. Brian looked over at me and mouthed that Noma didn't look weird to him at all.
He was perfect. A whopping 5 pounds and 7 ounces. His head was not disproportionately big to a tiny body and limbs. He is small but he is perfect and healthy. My baby boy.
The rest of the day I spent my time being transferred to our post partum room, getting a bite to eat, telling everyone Noma was here, and basically just living in the happiness and relief that our son was finally with us and in good shape. I loved him so much and I stared at him unceasingly as he slept in his little box. Then at the advice of other parents, we had him sent away to the nursery at night, so that we could get some sleep, too. They brought him back a couple of times in the middle of the night, so that I could feed him. The nurses said it was okay and that he was in no hurry to eat. So we didn't worry and we just sent him back and went to sleep until morning.
When morning came I felt a little better, and Noma stayed with us for the rest of the day, except for when he went to get his circumcision. I actually took a shower, and was able to walk around the room. I tried to feed him, and when I failed because he was too sleepy, we spent hours doing skin to skin.
The past several months were spent in anticipation of my son who I would love so much. Yesterday, I felt a fierce love of a mom as his protector and care taker. Today I am overwhelmed by my love for my son. I thought it was already at it's full capacity, but right now I know it is a love much bigger than I could have ever imagined, and it is one that makes me feel immensely vulnerable and helpless, and when the nurse took Rhys to get weighed and tested for jaundice just for two hours, instead of getting some sleep, I cried uncontrollably and spent that time looking at the hundreds of pictures I had taken of him in the past couple of days.

---fast forward to today, at 1 wk! 
We came home from the hospital on Friday and it was so awesome as I still had my adrenalin rush going. Sure I was up all night staring at his face to make sure he was breathing, but who needs sleep anyway, right? Our family and friends came over to love on him. Little man was asleep 90% of the time. The doctors had said it was because he was still gestationally young, and would have spent that time sleeping inside my womb anyway. Getting him to eat was so incredibly difficult, but we didn't worry much.
Then Monday rolled around, and after our visit with the pediatrician, we were re-admitted to pediatrics because homie had jaundice and had lost too much weight. Sad face. I was so, so sad because I already felt like a failure as a mom. Brian and I silently packed up to go back to the hospital. I was so emotionally drained, physically tired, and in much more pain than when I had come home.  I was wishing we were on our way to getting the hang of things yet we were backtracking. At that moment I was at a complete low, and my husband turned to me and said "We are so blessed." UGLY CRY TIME.
Though he was a horrible husband during labor and delivery (slept 19 hrs), Brian is proving to be such a good daddy. During the time he was home, he manned all the diaper changes, cleaning all the bottles and pumping supplies, doing all the baby laundry.