The Life of Bon: Welcome Baby Hugh!

Monday, February 13, 2017

Welcome Baby Hugh!

Hugh Dennis Larsen
Born January 24, 2017
4:55 pm
6 lbs 11 ounces


Tomorrow marks three weeks since Hugh joined our family.  Three weeks!  Already!  Time is such a thief.  The last month of pregnancy drags and drags and then when you are finally holding that newborn a month goes by in the blink of an eye.  NOT FAIR.

My goal for next week is to write and post Hugh's birth story.  Today I have neither the energy nor the mental focus required to write it.  But next week!  It was overall a pretty great experience and I felt really lucky to go into labor naturally and to get to do a successful vbac.  Hooray!  

I did have a friend come and take pictures that day but I haven't gotten those back yet, so for now you just get the few shots I captured on my camera.  Here are a few pictures of the day I delivered Hugh.


 6 am, pre epidural, contractions every 2 1/2 minutes.
I'm not nearly as happy as I look in this picture!




 

He is total perfection and we are absolutely gaga over him.  There is nothing in the world like having a newborn baby.

I mentioned on my instagram (@thelifeofbon) last week that while we have been so thrilled by Hugh's birth, that it has been a difficult few weeks.  The day after Hugh's birth we learned that Greg's brother and only sibling has stage 4 colon cancer.  It has been hard to focus much on this new birth when we have that diagnosis on our minds.  It isn't my story to tell and I always struggle with how much to let the online world know on things like this so I probably won't give too many more details  It suffices to say that it has rocked us and Greg's family and has made for a very hard few weeks.

During this time we have had lots of help from family and friends, of which I am so grateful.  Greg has gone up several times to be with his family and I have been floored by the amount of people who have stepped in to help us with kids, projects, cleaning, etc.  Neighbors and friends have brought meals and June has had a busy little calendar of play dates.  I am so grateful as I don't feel like I'm quite functioning on full capacity.  (Or even half capacity.)  Physically I am still healing and emotionally I am a total mess.  Postpartum emotions are crazy.

 Times like these are so tough, but I love that it is a chance for me to realize how great people are.  I've been reading a lot of Brene Brown the past couple of months and at one point she talks about receiving help and how important it is.  She emphasizes that not only should we teach our children to help others, but to learn to graciously ask for and receive that help when they need it.  I'm glad I read that before all of this happened as usually my pride gets in the way of allowing myself to receive too much help.  I don't want to appear weak.  But I have found a lot of peace in allowing myself to be completely vulnerable.  (Like when my brother came by my messy house to drop off June after taking her to play.  I burst into tears at how overwhelmed I felt by it all and instead of trying to hold it back in front of him, I just let myself cry.)  I've said yes to every single person who has offered to help.  There's an honesty in vulnerability is such a relief to me.  I don't have to pretend to have it all together or even close to all together.

Thanks for all the love and good juju that you guys have sent this way since Hugh's birth.  He has absolutely been the joy these past few weeks.  He came bursting into this world nine days early... I can't help but think that it wasn't a coincidence.  He knew we were going to need him.

AROUND THE WEB:
+ Greg often enjoys the benefits of my little blogging gig, but he has assured me that this is the coolest thing that has ever come from me having a blog.  Can't say I disagree!
+ These audition tapes of The Office made me cry tears of nostalgia the other night during a 2 am feeding.
+ I loved this 6 Steps to Mindfully Dealing with Difficult Emotions and found it to be particularly relevant to me at this time.
+ I was nodding in my head in agreement the whole time I read this Dumb Ass Stuff We Need to Stop Saying to Dads.  Greg gets so many of these types of comments and it drives us both crazy.

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