After switching to a transverse position after we got to the hospital, and the subsequent labor that followed before the c-section, Patrick looked a little beat up when he made his entrance to the world.
He also wasn't thrilled when the very nice hospital photographer arrived and began instructing us on positioning him for pictures. He wasn't in a "peacefully get my picture taken" sort of mood.
However, the disk with the photos (and photo rights!) came in the mail and I just had to share them here. And okay... I do like the black and white ones better than the color ones because he looks slightly less beat up in them. Poor little guy. He had a rough couple of days!
Amazing! So beautiful!
ReplyDeletePatrick is so adorable, and he doesn’t look that beat up to me – guess it is perspective!
ReplyDeleteMy 2nd ended up with two bloodshot eyes from ruptured capillaries, his nose squished flat and bruised from being born with his thumb in his mouth, and a tennis-ball sized hematoma on the top of his head, in addition to general all-over facial bruising. It was 6 weeks before he looked like a completely “normal” baby, but of course we loved him, and he is fine today! But quite a few relatives and friends were pretty freaked out by the squishy fluid-filled swelling on top of his head – almost nobody wanted to hold him for fear they would hurt him. And hats simply would not stay on - a bit of an issue in January. Plus the poor thing got pretty bad jaundice from having to re-absorb all the blood from the bruises, so he got even more bruises from daily heel pricks for the first 10 days to check his bilirubin levels (he escaped needing phototherapy lights by just a smidge, but looked quite suntanned for the first 2 weeks anyway). In our case the “damage” was from labor being too quick and violent, rather than overly long (3 hours from 1st contraction to baby is WAY too fast). With #3 I went to the hospital as soon as labor started and requested an epidural to slow things down, which worked well, and plan to do that for any future babies, as long as they give me enough warning!
-K