Okay, okay, here's how it all went down...

Fans of mine, I know you have long been distressed by my procrastination in putting up my birth story of 2 weeks back. The problem is, there was nothing sensational about, at least as far as a normal birth goes. The weightiest issue in this tale is the size of my newborn. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Our story begins w/Derek & I retiring for bed around 12:30am Sunday night. The past week had been busy w/working the potty angle w/the three-year-old, starting her preschool, and helping the other kids settle into elementary school. I'd been having irregular contractions all weekend, so when I lay in bed, unable to sleep (that was a little irony for myself in my current sleepless state), I realized something had changed. My contractions had picked up in strength and consistency. I finally got up and hit the computer, as well as started the wash. (Who wants to come home to masses of laundry needing doing?) I finally woke Dh around 3:30am with regret. He'd only slept a few hours the past few nights, knowing he was up against the wall with deadlines and a big Deadline. Or should I say, Lifeline? We hit the hospital around 5pm, got to triage, and were sent for a walk since my lazy cervix had done nothing w/all those contractions. They finally asked if I wanted to check-in or go home and wait. I chose check-in, knowing that my body is pretty much incapable of going into or sustaining labor itself. I must admit, after the ultrasound I'd had a few days before, I was getting nervous about how big this "little" man was going to be. I mean, I do have childbearing hips, but I have limits too...
They hooked me up w/some pitocin & a sweet epidural and broke my water. Notice my little buddy next to me on the bed. He had a special button that I could push ever 10 minutes to juice up my epidural. That won him the right to lay next to me AND my cell phone. After reading and sleeping for a bit, I noticed that I was feeling some pressure, so when the doc made her way back around to my room, I asked her to check me. (This is after having to jack up the pictocin since my piece-of-garbage cervix was still contracting nicely but making no progress.) Lo, and behold, baby was a comin'. You know how it is then--after all that waiting, the room bursts into a flurry of disposable pads, plastic pans, chrome instruments, and really bright lights. And just a few shoves later (and one hell of a tear), my 9lbs even baby boy was born into the world. As w/all my kids, he had pooed pre-birth, so he got the throat vacuum and a little oxygen, but fortunately didn't have any breathing difficulties and we got to enjoy him for a couple hours before they dragged us to the post-partum room. The first thing we noticed upon examing him was the bulk of his weight was obviously centered in his cheeks. Truly, they are amazing pouches any chipmunk would be proud to own.
We also immediately noted that he was not, as previously thought, 100% Corey. In fact, his head was a perfect mix of Derek's and I's (much like Shrimp's), so nice and proportional that you just want to palm it. He does, however, have Derek's physique and exceptionally strong little muscles. (Especially on those thighs.) Ya, we have another athlete in the family!!!
What we've also learned over the course of days, is that he is an amazingly mellow little guy. He hardly cries, and is pretty patient w/all the (overdone) attention he gets. He doesn't even cry when he gets out of the bath, though he's obviously freezing to death. He does, however, get even. I can't tell you how many times he's sprayed us, and not just urine. Having younger brothers, I knew all about this. Derek, not so much. Welcome to life w/the Tinkle Sharpshooter, the Urinator, the Sprayer of all Things Clean & Freshly Laundered.
Of course, it was a grand occasion when the older sisters four came to visit their baby brother for the first time. I feel for their teachers that day--I'm sure they didn't pay too much attention to their lectures or classwork. In fact, the nurse had just come in to take the baby's vitals when the girls showed up and promptly scurried out when they made their delight known. (And likely woke up the entire maternity ward.)
Our deepest gratitude to sister Lynn who drove to our house around 4am to get the kids up & off to school on no sleep. We most surely owe her our firstborn. Or something like that...
And then there is Grandma who has never failed to jump a plane and be there to ease us into life w/a new Life. There is no doubt that I won some lottery in heaven to have come up with such an amazing mother-in-law. Ditto for the grandkids.
One of the harder tasks we faced before leaving prison, I mean, the hospital, was finding a name for our little prince. After much soul-searching and baby-gazing, we finally settled on the name I had proclaimed for the past decade would be used for our first son: David Lloyd, after both of our fathers. Both of us have very special dads and it was kind of fateful the way their names fit together so nicely. To keep the confusion to a minimum, we decided on the nickname of Dade rather than Dave. (We found that one when we reading about David O. McKay.)
Upon my (early) discharge from the hospital, the girls wasted no time in making the baby feel at home. He was the lucky recipient in the first hour alone of at least three pink blankets, 4 stuffed lovies, and a number of pre-used Soothies from the dress-up box. He slept through the entire gift exchange.
For that matter, he slept through the entire week. Unlike Daddy who may well have gotten less sleep than me. I think he may have gotten three short nights of sleep that week as he struggled to make deadlines and help out at home. But both of us agreed that despite how hard that week was, it was better the baby came sooner rather than later and before his cheeks ballooned to C-section size.
Now we have just been enjoying nibbling on his scrumptious cheeks...
Petting his Chia hair and smelling his baby smell...
And seeing him start to wake up to the world.