One week ago...

One week ago we came home from the hospital to take on this new adventure called parenting. After having help from the nurses at the hospital, the first night was a bit harder than I expected. Thankfully my mom was here to kick me out of the nursery and tell me to "go to sleep." Each night since has gotten easier. My days are full of Dane...not much else gets done around the house yet. I have managed to do laundry and shower every day but that is just about all I get done! I can't help but just stare at him and I want to hold him even when he sleeps. Anyway, we've continued to snap pictures of him throughout the week...we've posted a few more so you can see how much he's changed already:

Happy Birthday, Grandpa

Grandpa Hatten turns another year older (I mean wiser, of course) today.

What a difference...

...a day can make! I hate to brag about our boy who seems to already be a child genius, but he has already figured out what his night time schedule should be and started following it Friday night! On our first night home from the hospital I was pretty convinced that I had given up sleep for the rest of my life. Thursday night was a little better but not much. Last night he got up every 2 to 2.5 hours and ate, had a diaper change and went right back to sleep! I feel much less zombie like than I did 24 hours ago. I got a total of at least 6 hours last night, obviously broken up but I'm still very happy about it! I just hope he continues to do so well at night!

Here are some of our favorite pictures so far this week:

First trip to the pediatrician:This world is so hard:

Dane's Birth Story

First of all, thank you so much to all who have called, emailed and facebooked all the kind words for our little man. We promise to get back to you as soon as possible if you haven't heard from us yet. Secondly, a round of applause for my hubby who did a great job with all the updates over the past few days. He is obviously a bit more technically sound than I am with the photo montages and slideshows. Also I want to publicly thank him for being so wonderful over the past few days...he gave me a beautiful charm bracelet for my "push" present with a little "d" charm. He's also helped me out a lot at home since walking is kind of a chore right now. Also - a huge thank you to my mom who has been staying with us and Cameron's parents for all their help this week. Some of my family is coming next week and weekend as well, so we'll have lots of help!

Now, onto Dane's birth story (this could take a while)...
Sunday, February 15th we checked into the hospital at 7pm for a fun filled night of me hooked up to monitors and very little sleep. Monday morning I was woken at 5am to start my IV. They started the pitosin at 7am and contractions had started very mildly before they started the pitosin drip. Each time they came into check on me, they upped the pitosin to try to get me contracting harder before noon. Contractions were getting a little more intense around 10am and Cameron was holding my hand through all of it. 11am rolled around and they checked me - 2 cm dilated and they decided to break my water to get things moving. Well...it definitely did! By noon, I was 3 centimeters dilated and in pain so bad I wanted to crawl out of my own skin! So...bring on that epidural! Once the epidural kicked in almost immediately I fell asleep! I slept until 3:30 and they came in to check my progress again and it was already time to push! So...I pushed for an hour and a half and out came our little Dane man at 5:08!

Of course, growing up a tough farm girl I had to talk to my nurse to make sure I wasn't a big ol' wimp. I said to her "am I such a wimp for not being able to handle the contractions at only 3 cm dilated?" Maybe everything she explained to me was a lie so I felt like less of a wimp but I am choosing to believe her. She said that with a medical induction it's almost like double time because they're forcing the progression so much faster than your body would do it naturally. So, she said at 3 cm dilated I was actually contracting like I was 6 or 7 cm dilated. Whew...I was a bit worried I was becoming a softie!

Bella Baby Pics

Bella Baby is a company that offers professional newborn pics while you are still at the hospital. They did a great job capturing Dane in his first 24 hours, so we chose some applicable song clips to show them to you in the video below

Dane's First Rock Video

Dane's first couple pics

Nothing much to say...just some first pics of Dane. (He's still a little swollen from the day, but still looks great with his stylish Mohawk):

Welcome Dane Paul Hatten!

Dane Paul has made his grand entrance into this world! He was born on Feb 16 at 5:08 pm weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and 21 inches long.

We have much to share, but we wanted to first get the news out of his arrival. All is well, mom & baby are both doing very good...just exhausted! We will share the birth story soon...and pics too.