3:43am

Well, it's 3:43am, and I'm awake... kind of. My little guy has been waking up to nurse every 30 minutes or so, so I thought that it was probably time to stop trying to sleep between feedings and just "woman up" and wait for him to be hungry again.

So! Jude Isaac Frank was born on Monday, May 21st at 8:54am. He weighed 8 pounds, 7 ounes, and he measured 21.5 inches in length! Sadly, he was not born a home, though I did give it the ol' college try.

My water broke at around 2am on Sunday morning. Contractions didn't start for at least another hour or so. 26 hours after my water broke, I was exhausted. I could barely keep my eyes open, and the pain was really unbearable. I decided that I wanted to transfer to the hospital and get something to take the edge off... not an epidural, but something. Anyway, at 4:30am-ish on Monday morning, Josh, Dhyana, Mary, and I hauled butt to Mercy Hospital. When we got there, I agreed to receive fluids and antibiotics via IV since my water had been broken/I had been laboring for so long. After sticking me six times, the nurse gave up on trying to get a vein. Note: then nurse got a vein every time she tried. The problem was that every. single. time. she got a vein, it proceded to blow or bubble. What all that means for yours truely is that I *did* get the drug-free birth I had been wanting... I'm glad things worked out that way.

Other aspects of the labor/birth (the aspects that occured at the hospital) make me sick to think about. The OB was horrible (as I had anticipated), I was bullied, poked, and proded, and I'm having a really hard time getting over feeling like I/my body was violated. My birth prefererences were ignored, and many a thing was done to me without my informed consent. To make matters worse, I lost a lot of blood during Jude's birth (most of which may be as a result of one or more of the OB's procedures) and had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. Sleeping in a place where you feel you lost a big part of yourself is really hard. I don't recommend it.

Anyway... Jude is doing really well. He's healthy and happy and is nusing like a champ. Now, if he would just sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time... (=