My little baby boy is now one week old. This has been the most emotionally intense week of my life, full of wonder, joy, fear, and so, so much love. I'm going to end up bawling my eyes out if I try to convey the way my heart swells with love and pride whenever I see my perfect little guy. The way he nurses, sometimes with a perfect latch-on, sometimes after much flailing around with open mouth and teensy grabbing hands (baby nails on my nipples=ow ow ow!). The way he almost always falls asleep while eating, so that I have to tickle his little feet or stroke his back, and how he sort of gasps in a one-and-two rhthym when he wakes and starts sucking again. The way he'll turn his little head and rest it pillowed against my breast once he's drunk his fill, his sweet milky breath sweetly wafting up. His little face is so sweet. I can watch him sleep for hours.

And when he's awake (quiet alert time or even active alert time) and looking into my face with wonder, dark blue eyes wide and new. The way he perks up if you carry him into the kitchen or bathroom because he doesn't see those rooms as often and is looking around at all the new shapes.

You can see a Flickr set of his first week, with more info sprinkled
throughout the descriptions (which I just added this morning, since the work I did yesterday Flickr Uploader *lost*), at this link:

http://flickr.com/photos/heathershaw/sets/72157603193778050/

I am so in love with this little guy! I am not sleeping
when he sleeps because I can't stop watching him sleep, he's so sweet!

I am so tired.

I'm still working on the birth story, but for now let's just say it
was the most physically intense experience of my life and was about
as hard as it could've been. The short version: Four days of back
labor followed by four hours of pushing followed by an emergency
c-section. Followed by my perfect little guy.

Oh, somebody's hungry again! I'll try to steal a little time away to write more later.

Best week of my life.