Okay, FINALLY get to make my post in here.

We had been planning a home birth, but my due date came and went with no signs of labor. Once we hit 41 weeks we were having non stress tests every second or third day, and an extra ultrasound to make sure everything was still working okay. Tried to induce labor at home with castor oil to no avail.

On the morning of 42 weeks my midwife came over to manually break my water as a last ditch effort to get me into labor before we had to do a hospital transfer. Things looked positive, and my best friend and I spent a few hours walking around my neighborhood to hopefully get contractions going.

Our third walk finally did it, and I labored in the rental tub for a while before getting out of the water to push. Atlas Constantine Boddy was born on October 13th, at 3:37 pm, at home, a little less than six hours after we broke my water. 8lbs, 3oz, no drugs, no other interventions, no complications. His big brother Tycho woke up from his nap just in time to watch him be born.

Awesome, congratulations!

Popping into this thread

Wife is do with out first in May.

Thankfully everything has been quite easy on her so far. Toughest part has been deciding if we want to find out the sex.

Congratulations. Why wouldn't you want to find out the sex, though?

Found out yesterday my girlfriends pregnant, have been with her for about 6 months but this was unplanned. Am 36 so guess its about right time for me life wise but just having a hard time getting my head round it at the moment. She is 40 and miscarried twice in a previous relationship. Any input or advice would be appreciated.

Wife really just wants the surprise of when it happens. Think there is some pressure from her side of the family as they have never found out. No big deal to me. Just want healthy.

10 months old now, 28 pounds and tall, in 95+ percentile for both height and weight. Having a kid is awesome, trying to convince the wife that it's time to get working on baby # 2

man totally forgot about this thread, thanks Jay for posting and beautiful pics, they all end up growing so fast!

Mine is about to turn 18 months... 1.5 years, it's insane, he's grown so much and is just SO much more fun to be around, active, running everywhere really see the wheels turnings as he solves problems/learns to do new things. Definitely has a personality of his own (he will play jokes/do stuff he thinks is funny), really been a crazy ride to see.

We actually just left on a 1 year trip around the world just me, my wife, and him, we're in the 2nd month of it now (1st month Iceland, 2nd month France) and really can't wait to see how he grows over this year. Anyways thanks for reminding me of this thread it's really nice to just write/post, I don't take enough time to collect my thoughts on him but it is definitely the best thing to have happened to me

Nice pics man, glad that my bumping of this thread was enjoyed by someone haha. Jealous of your trip around the world though.

Just beautiful.

Love the dog pic.

As a quick update... She's so great at 2 years 8 months. She can talk well, run/play well and can count to 15.

That being said she has total meltdowns when she doesn't get what she wants. I thought the "terrible twos " were over but it almost seems like they just begun. She's a strong-willed child and I'm unsure if its her personality or she's just spoiled (her grandparents would let her set the house on fire).

Any advice for a 2.5 year old? At this point we just let her act out until she calms down, which can take up to 45 minutes (wtf?). I'm fine with that but I don't know how much longer I'm fine with it. Are we being too weak as parents, or is it just a faze?

Note :I don't care if I suffer, I'm more worried about her development than my frustration.

Big one turned four yesterday. He alternates between awesome and terrible. He has lots of weird and varied interests that are all his own and that's really cool. Not a baby in any fashion anymore.



Little one is nine months. He is starting to sleep slightly less like crap, so that's good. Otherwise he is sunshine and happiness.

Mine isn't quite there yet so I don't think I'm qualified to give advice but would really love to hear some discussion on it cause it's something I think about quite a bit. Mine right now doesn't have meltdowns often and they don't last very long it's usually 1 of 2 things, the first is I'll see things that don't normally make him mad, like he can't reach something he wants/etc. cause him to burst into tears. This is almost always him being super tired and hard to fault him for it so I just try to be pretty calm around him then and find a way to start transitioning him to bed or if that's not possible (we're out) try to hangout with him 1-1 or like just keep it pretty calm for him so he doesn't get overstimulated.

The second is more interesting and has only happened twice ever (I'm sure it will happen a lot more once he's 2+) where he is just thrown into a total fury for not getting something that he wants/his way. This is the much more interesting of the two scenarios because the causality isn't always as easy to define as the first where it's just like "oh he's tired, OK, I can fix that". For me in both of these times when it lasted more than a minute or so I take him to a quiet place (in our old place it was his room, while traveling it was my/my wife's bed) and just tried to take away all the stimuli/distractions, talk to him in a really calm voice / look directly at him and kinda be on his level, so in his room I would sit on the floor w/him in the bed I'd have him propped up sitting next to me. I always try to be super clam/soothing in this situation, in the long run I'm basically hoping I can learn to practice some meditation with him in times like this, but the whole point is like calm him down, get him breathing normally (he doesn't understand the commands to do this but he gets it by my demeanor/voice) and I generally just talk to him. Typically just talking through like "You're feeling really overwhelmed, this isn't something that would normally bother you but sometimes you just get really worked up. It's not a bad thing for this to happen but it's good to try to recognize it and what makes you feel like this so you can learn to calm down and not let it bother you so much. etc. etc.", obv he doesn't get most of it and it's just the sound of my voice/pacing at the moment but hopefully eventually some of it sinks in.

Anyways have no idea if this will work as he gets older, and it's a little hard for the first few minutes of this when you need to convince him not to just like jump out of the bed/go back to running around, really trying to establish this is a time to be calm and we're just going to sit and hangout in a quiet space for a little bit. Would like to hear if this sounds crazy-ish to anybody else but I really knew I didn't want to do the whole cry-it-out or be put in timeout or that kind of stuff and this is what I came up with :-p.

I don't think it's being weak as parents to let her act out until she calms down. I think giving in, and giving her whatever she wants to get her to calm down would be weak. Now, that's not to say you should never give in, because honestly sometimes you just want quiet. You just have to pick and choose your spots.

At 2.5. I'd say it's just a faze, but it's a great time to teach her that this isn't acceptable behavior. When my wife and I had our first ( I have 5 all together, 2 with and ex 3 with my wife) she spoiled him to no end. Gave him whatever he wanted never disciplined him. He was king of the house. Now hes 5 and pays her no mind when she tries to discipline him. Its a tough spot to be in, but it's getting better. Its all about patience and finding a balance.

Welp. I know you're "not supposed to tell people" until like 7 weeks or so, but you're not, like, people, you're denizens of the internet. That pee stick done changed color this morning, so we're in for a roller coaster one way or another.

Whoooooooooooooooo! Congrats, buddy!

Congrats.

Enjoy the ride. It's the best one you'll go on.

Well, we had the first doctor's appt. and the first ultrasound yesterday. Heart's beating fine, and everything seems to be in order. Due date is not precisely known: it'd be July 31 based on cycle, or a week or so later based on fetus size (8 mm). Neither are super precise at this point, but early Augustish is likely, esp. since aren't first time moms more likely to be late?

We're in the midst of a bit of a doctor shuffle, though. The OB/GYN MrsWookie had been going to decided to not to OB anymore, so she had to get set up with a new one. Also, we moved about a half hour or so south of where we had been living when she picked that doc, and apparently the docs at the current facility won't do delivery at a hospital under the same company that's closer to us, despite assurances from the original doc that they would do delivery there. So, we'd have to find yet another doctor there in order to get delivery at the more convenient location. That'll probably happen, but it's a big pain around the holidays.

Congratulations Wookie!!! Sorry I missed your original post.
Really excited for you and the Misses.

Be very aware that you may or may not come up against hospital staff with an "agenda". When we gave birth we had multiple people really hammer their stance on breast feeding and how it was very much better than not breast feeding. We already decided beforehand that we were fine with trying breastfeeding to see if my wife was alright with it.

Talk about it beforehand and make a decision. You may decide to do it and then run into complications (not producing enough milk, exhaustion, etc) and not be able to, or just decide it isn't something that is right for your family.

Just putting it out there. I thought it was very intrusive, honestly.

Wookie! Congratulations, awesome news!

I have a suggestion for baby's first clothes...

Hey Wookie, congratulations!! That's so cool!

Congrats Wookie! Having a child is awesome.

Other than the terror, that is what they tell me.

Congrats, Wookie!