He Is Not Overwhelmed: Rowan's Birthday...after the labor

After Rowan was born she got to hang out skin to skin with her dad and I for the first hour of life. The nurse put her on my chest with my hospital gown still on actually and Matt was the one who reminded her skin to skin was best at first and we should help me out of the gown, he really did read his daddy books! :) She was FEISTY! Moving all around, rooting, squawking and snorting. No sweet snuggly baby for that first 20 min. Then she calmed down and we tried to breastfeed. All she wanted to do was lick and gum everything. She latched a few times but wasn't interesting in sucking. I let it go and didn't push the matter, thinking she will suck when she is ready. While this bonding time was happening they were fixing me up down there. I had a first degree tear and got 2 or 3 stitches. I was told you don't feel anything down there because you are so excited your baby is here that she consumes all your attention...not so much actually. I felt all the lidocaine shots and when they didn't take, I felt all the stitching. Rachel asked if I wanted her to stop and try more lidocaine, to which I declined and said just go fast. A poke was going to be a poke either way right? I was just ready to close my legs and give that area a rest already.

Then Matthew brought our baby binder over to the bed that had our name options, time to settle this once and for all. Our two names were Cora and Rowan. We had a few middle name options for each that we still were debating. I have loved the name Cora from the start of our brainstorming. I liked the alliteration of Cora Clark. I thought it was a sweet name but still sounded strong, not too girly fru-fru. Matt found Rowan in his second round of brainstorming. As I have shared with many of you, his first round was full of many comical suggestions, his second round only had 5 names or so and they were all much better options. Rowan was one of these. At first I shot down the idea because I work with someone who's son is named Rowan. I feel like girls can get possessive over their names and no one likes to hear other kids named the same thing for fear of it becoming too popular. Matt said he was writing on the list anyway. He said the name had a red connotation to it which reminded him of her room and how we liked those shades for a girl and not pink. He also liked that we could call her Ro for short. He wasn't a huge fan of Cora initially but said he kept trying it out and it was growing on him. I decided to do the same with his name suggestions and the more I thought of Rowan the more I really liked it. We would poll each other every so often and say, "What have you been calling her today?" Over weeks of doing this we eventually dwindled it down to these two that we consistently thought of her as. Matt ended up liking Cora a lot and I ended up liking Rowan. So now we were stuck with two names we both liked equally. So I started brainstorming middle names, thinking if we found a good fit, maybe that would persuade us. I came up with 5 or so middle names for each name and the only combination I loved was Rowan McKinley. I thought it sounded good since Rowan could be a boy or girl name, McKinley made the name more feminine and girly without going overboard. Matt liked that Mt. McKinley is also the tallest mountain in the US, it made the name seem strong to him which he liked for his firstborn. I felt bad Cora didn't have an equally awesome middle name so I vowed to keep searching to make it more fair. Our top of the list for that name was Cora Reece, which was nice but I didn't love. So from that point on we decided to wait until she was born to make the call. Everyone kept saying she will for sure look like one or the other, so we banked on that. I should have known I would be just as indecisive with this as I have been with everything this pregnancy. When the time came and we were ready to make the decision, we looked at her and looked at the name list and looked back at her then looked at each other. We both shrugged and laughed and said neither name jumped out for us. Really?! Now what? She didn't "look" like a Rowan or a Cora. So I told Matt to just pick one, I couldn't take it anymore. He said well the best combo that we have consistently liked is Rowan McKinley, so let's go with that. I nodded in agreement and Rowan was named.

Then the NICU nurse came in to assess her and she got a thumbs up for being healthy. It had been over an hour now and everyone was dying to come back and meet her. My mom and Gina were the first ones through the door. They got about 10 sec of excitement in before the lactation lady followed and insisted we try breastfeeding again. So much for her meeting the family... how anticlimactic. Rowan was much more calm now and took to feeding great. We nursed awhile and then lactation left. When she was finished all the family came back. Gina caught everything on camera and I love her for it. Bring on the pictures....

Getting the text that she arrived

Matt's family arriving

Gina's first peek into the room

Mom meeting her granddaughter

The rest of my family walking in...and the lactation lady that would spoil our fun

Meeting grandpa

And Aunt Shelby

Meeting her cousin, soon to be BFF if her mom and I have any say in the matter :)

Meeting Nana, Papa and Aunt Leslie

Back to mommy and daddy

The proud daddies and their girls

Meeting Aunt Meme after moving to the mother baby side of the unit a few hours later.

With her handsome Uncle

With Rachel, our awesome midwife...who is due any day now herself. Glad we beat her to it :)

Family photo

My excited family

Aunt Beth thinking you are the cutest baby ever and so excited to meet you!

So in love

Aunt Gina finally getting in on some picture time!

Katie and BJ arrived with their boys who each brought Rowan a flower. What handsome little suitors she already has :)

Love this! Katie look at our families! Who would have thought this is what our lives would look like when we met in high school? So neat to share all this with you :)