Finally Here!

Well it was a long 9 months but we finally have our little boy! Raiden Robert Jay Woodland! Born on September 20th 2009 at 10:48pm. It was a grueling 12 hour labor, but worth it all! He was 6lbs 9oz and 18.75 inches. As the first grand baby on both sides of our families he's the definitely the center of attention right now! We'll see though as Ally and Jared get married. We can't wait for our kids to have cousins ;-).

We've been lucky enough to have a full month of grandma's to help. Obachan (Christine's Mom) came the first 2 weeks. She got the full on postpartum experience with Christine's anxieties and little Raiden being so little. Now we have Abeulita (I don't think I spelled that right, and we're still figuring out what Grandma Woodland wants to be called, so right now it's temporary). She's here with us for another 2 weeks or so. It's been a real blessing to have such wonderful moms on both sides of our families. I don't know how Brandon and I could have made it through. Being a new mom is something that no one can prepare you for. There's tons of emotions and worries that you don't expect to feel. Lucky for me I had my moms and they've been the biggest support and help. I recommend mom month for anyone that's having a baby!

Well back to our little guy... We initially thought that breastfeeding was going to be great and was the perfect option for our new family. Well, we ran into some obstacles along the way. Raiden over the first 4 days lost about 13oz, which made his weight 5lbs 12oz. After Dr. Thomas our pediatrician saw how much weight Raiden lost, he recommended that we start supplementing with formula. Poor Raiden! He was sucking but not really getting anything out. Fortunately we saw a lactation consultant, who recognized Raiden had difficulty sucking. Because he wasn't able to suck efficiently my milk wasn't coming in and so he was pretty hungry. Well, over the course of another week, I pumped and gave Raiden breast milk, formula, and breastfed him. That was an exhausting week--I'm sure my mom recalls that. Finally it was just so hard to get Raiden to latch on and suck that we started to just give him the bottle. I pumped and fed him my milk with bottles, not my idea of breastfeeding. I felt pretty bad giving up and I had quite a few meltdowns, but really I was just afraid of trying to give him the breast, since it hadn't gone so well in the past. Well after Day 16, I just couldn't fully give up without trying one more time. Brandon stayed with me during every feeding and we tried really hard to give him the breast. This time it was working. Now we're still making formula as a back up, but I'm not really pumping-Raiden keeps me busy enough, and he's mostly just eating from the breast. This has been a crazy and hard experience but I'm so glad that we're getting through it.

So that is what has happened these past few weeks. Life is definitely changed, going out to do errands and even house work is just kind of on the back burner until Raiden gets a little older. He's pretty fussy when he's tired and it's a big job to get him to sleep sometimes, but once he's worn out, he's a goner. We're still figuring out what his cries mean, but I definitely know when he's hungry, his sucking is a lot more frantic. Anyways I hope this give a little insight into our lives for now. Stay tuned and we'll give updates as we learn to live as 3 Woodlands instead of just 2. Love you all!