He’s here… and he has a name!

After a fast and furious delivery on Wednesday, our baby boy made his long-awaited arrival into this world. He spent his first two days of life without a name, as I struggled to commit to any of our choices. The “name” line on his hospital crib card remained blank the whole time we were there!

In the end, however, we went with the name that kept reappearing at the top of our list: Asa.

Our hospital stay was close to idyllic. By instituting our own limited visiting hours, we managed to create a mostly calm and peaceful environment to rest and recover.

Except, of course, when Levi the whirling dervish came to visit! He was overwhelmed and overly excited by all of the gadgets and buttons, not to mention by his baby brother.

In addition to visiting with my parents (who flew in from NJ before Asa was born to help out) and Levi, we spent our time in the hospital chatting with friends and their newborn who were three doors down the hall, making phone calls, cuddling with Asa, and attempting (and failing) to nap.

Life at home has been slightly more chaotic than it was at the hospital — but certainly not as chaotic as it would have been if we had a house full of guests to entertain. This time around, we asked the rest of our family to allow us a few days to adjust to life as a foursome before descending upon Omaha for the bris (they all start arriving today). I was nervous to make that request of them but so happy that we did.

Levi is so in love with Asa and wants to hold, hug, and kiss him all the time. We’re still working on teaching him how to be affectionate without being too aggressive. Perhaps we should’ve practiced with a doll first…

When the baby is crying, Levi gets right into Asa’s face and yells, “It’s ok, baby!” He’s also constantly exclaiming. “He’s reaching for me! The baby loves me!”

My physical pain is slightly lessening day by day (wait until you the hear story of how my epidural didn’t happen!), but the emotional roller coaster that is the postpartum period is just beginning. And my exhaustion only exacerbates the up-and-down post-pregnancy hormones.

Asa has his days and nights totally mixed up (he was the same way in the womb), so I’m awake and cluster feeding him almost every hour between midnight and 6am. Unfortunately, I’ve also been unable to nap during the day (too much adrenaline, perhaps?).

Before Wednesday, I didn’t understand how I could possibly love another child the way I love Levi, but my heart doubled in size when they placed a just-born Asa on my chest. The challenge now is learning how to divide my attention between my two boys. Any tips?

Thank you again for all of your well wishes and congratulations on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In case you were wondering, I have fun new content and some amazing guest bloggers lined up to share on the blog, so things will be running as close to normal as possible. I may slow down on social media a bit, as I’m trying to be in the present moment as much as possible, but I’m not going to be able to resist posting pictures of Asa on Instagram!