Laboring on the ball and walking around like a hula dancer AND all of the strange exercises the week before worked to spin Fin the right way for his birthday. He had been presenting sunny side up with toes in my ribs---not good for bug babies and mamas who want natural childbirth!

Funny memory--I ate lunch around 1. Finley was born at 3:46. My nurse said that's unusual for mom to have eaten so recently. Really until 2:30ish I was feeling great for the most part playing cribbage and swiveling my hips around.

Found out from my midwife that I only actually pushed for 3 minutes. Wow.

Finley at Home

We're loving our family. Ingrit continues to dote on and love her little brother. Daddy keeps looking proud. Mama is happy, but currently experiencing a pretty good bout of post partum blues. Wow, what a bum kicker those can be!

We had our first pediatrician visit which confirmed our diagnosis of the handsomest little guy in the world. We also had a home health nurse come check on me and baby. He's started to gain weight after losing the customary 10%. Nursing is going well.

We all went to Como Zoo yesterday. Trying to do as many Ingrit-led things as we can.

Finley Wheat Herfel

Welcome home, Finley Wheat!

Finley was born at 3:46pm on 9/7/2010 at Woodwinds Hospital in Woodbury, MN. He weighed 9 pounds and 2.8 ounces. He was 21" long. I thought he looked so tiny! He was born with a full head of black/brown hair. I fell in love instantly as he lay wide eyed and quiet on my chest looking at me. Daddy cut his cord after it stopped pulsing and we all just looked at each other for awhile and tried our first try at breastfeeding. Finley seemed to be a natural.

He was so calm and quiet at birth. He just right away seemed to be such a sweet little guy. This continued to amaze me throughout our first few days together. He would let me know something was wrong and then I'd fix it and he'd be happy. Most often this something wrong was just that he needed snuggling. He's a super snuggly baby.

It was amazing to watch little boy come into the world. I'm so glad I opened my eyes! His labor happened very quickly once things really got started and I couldn't look anywhere but in.

Labor began at home with my water breaking at 5 am. I called Mimi and she came to take care of Ingrit for the day.

Finley got weighed in and because he was over 8 lb 14 oz, his blood sugar was checked right away. It was fine at this check. It dipped at the next check so little man needed to go get his blood drawn for a more accurate reading the special care nursery. He went with Daddy and Grandpa in the Woods to get this done and I climbed in the tub with some lavender bath salts and felt so calm and good and relaxed.

The rest of Finley's blood sugar checks were good and he came right back up after a quick feeding of 15cc's of formula by bottle. They checked them every hour until about 1 AM.

All other tests/checks for Finley were passed and he seems to be perfect.

Finley, Daddy, and Grandpa came back and Grandma in the Woods was there too to hold little boy.

At about 6pm, Mimi and Grampie W came by with the Ingers to meet Finley. Ingrit seemed to fall in love with baby right away she kept saying "I pet it!" and "Baby SO cute!" She was upset that I wasn't coming home with them, but since Grandma in the Woods was coming home with her that helped.

I can't say enough good about the care I received from the midwives and nurses at Woodwinds. They were all great and made me feel so cared for. They even took time to show care for Ingrit and taught her to use the stethoscope to listen to heartbeats.

Ingrit visiting Finley....Ingrit is so much fun to watch with her little brother! You can see that she loves him. Even in moments of "hey my world just got turned upside down and I don't know how to deal with that" she hasn't shown any negativity toward little boy. Ingrit is the best big sister!

Rooming in with Finley gave me a chance to bond alone with little man and I hope I never forget some of the time we spent looking at each other in the twilight hours of our first days together.

Facebook Killed the Blogger Star

We've been posting things on FB and totally ignoring our little blogspot. No good! I'd like this to function in some ways like a little journal baby book for the kidsos.

Baby #2 we're told has hair and is going to be a big baby. They could see his hair on the ultra sound. That was cool.

Will try to update this more often.

Here are some vacation pictures from the annual Herfel vacation to Lake Namekagon.

Ingers, Mommy, and GW went to Macy's for the "Day in the Life of an Elf" display and to see Santa. Ingers was not so keen on Santa. I promose though no children were harmed in the shooting of this photo. She was only in his lap for a second or two and we didn't try to make her smile.

This photo is priceless to me though. She will really get a kick out of it when she's older.

Sea of Balls! (Poor quality phone videos)

Here are two of the 6,000 swan dives Ingrit took into the "Sea of Balls!" Ka-blooey! ... She was initially reluctant, but fortunately some two-year old was there to grab her by the rear-end and shove her in. (Not captured on film, sadly.) After that, she couldn't get enough of it.