IT"S A BOY!!!!

Brady Robert Ripplinger was born Sunday Oct 19th at 7:49 pm. (not the middle of the night, yay!) He weighed 7 lb 5 oz and was 19 inches long. And most importantly, it's a BOY! I was surprised, I was thinking a girl. He came prettly quickly and smoothly, a great epidural and two pushes and he was out. He came posterier and we didn't know it, but there wasn't a problem.

I can't believe how each child is a miracle and so perfect and amazing. We are so lucky and excited to have another boy, most people were guessing it was a boy.

So Sunday morning I started with some contractions that were just different than before. Irregular but harder. I decided to stay home from church, and glad I did. I just took it easy on the couch-really trying to delay the labor until monday morning so my doctor could deliver me for once- But I was pretty sure we were past the point of no return. We got to the hospital at 5:00 and I was dilated to a 5. So we ordered the epidural, it got in at 6:30, broke water at 7. When I was dilated to a 7, and I was ready to push by 7:35. Two pushes and he came out facing up, they said "oh, he was backwards." But I must be a super-duper good pusher because there wasn't a single problem with it. He didn't really cry much and soothed himself with his hands by his mouth pretty quickly. It all happened pretty darn perfectly and quickly too. I only tore a little, yippy!

Look at the strawberry blonde hair. We think it's pretty cool looking.!

The kids were pretty excited... to sleep at Grandma Ripps. But they were excited to see the Brady too. Kelli liked to see him and then she was pretty concerned about when the nurses would come in and help me. She also liked to dance on the smooth wood floor. And Derek was by far the more interested one. He says, 'he's like me.' He loves to hold Brady and tickle and look at and watch and talk to. You name it he's there. He followed Brady as he was passed around. He is still pretty concerned about the belly button. And he loves to hold the binky. We are going to have some good times coming up that's for sure. I just hope Brady can survive them and that I can keep my temper and not pound Derek for just being curious. The kids already got their first nursing lesson.

He looks kind of chubby in this picture. This was before we were coming home. He is jaundice so he is under the billirubin lights at home. That's not very fun but we were expecting it, and I think we caught it early so let's hope it won't take long.

Brady is a good eater and really loves to find his hands and have them around.