Yep!!! We did!!! We put him down last night at 11:00ish and we all just woke up - 7 am!

God not only blessed us with a beautiful boy, he also blessed us with a boy that sleeps! Since the day he was born he’s slept good chunks of time. He had a couple of nights where he confused his days and nights but for the most part, his night stretches are getting longer. I think this is a side effect of getting formula, I’m told it’s heavier than breast milk. Or maybe he’s taking after mommy because i’m told that I was a good sleeper, too! Whatever the reason, we’re thankful!

Did I mention that our little rock star is only 18 days old??!

First, I will apologize now for the randomness of this post, my head is swimming with thoughts and emotions and it may not all make sense!

So, Dominic is now 2 weeks old and I can’t believe it. I feel like so much has happened and I’ve learned so much in just these 2 weeks.

Becoming a mom is something that NO one could have prepared me for. Yeah sure I have read every book, listened to every bit of advice, and I’ve even been called “a natural” but still - the moment he came out, I all of a sudden became absolutely clueless about this whole parenting thing. Why is he crying? Is his poo supposed to be THAT color??? Is he supposed to sleep this much? And all of these questions came up during the first, oh… 5 minutes!

Oh, and let’s not forget about the crying. No, not him. ME. Holy moly, how come no one warned me about the hormones??!! My body pretty much gave me the finger after Dominic was born. Not just physically but emotionally. The first week home I think I told Angelo I needed to be committed. I was definitely hit hard by the “baby blues” and it was not pretty. I felt like I was such a failure because Dominic was crying or gassy. It was ridiculous. I didn’t even want to have visitors, I preferred to sit with my baby and be sad that I was a failure. Crazy. After about a week I had to have a talk with myself and realize that babies cry, that’s what they do, and it is not a result of my mothering skills. Once I came to terms with that, I started to get better. Now, I love being a mom and look forward to going out more with him and having my life be a little more “normal.”

Things are definitely looking up now that week 2 is over. We are establishing a routine, which is pretty easy when your baby does little more than eat, sleep, and poo. He is a pretty good little sleeper, too! For days now he has slept pretty decently at night. We put him down for the night around 10 or 10:30pm and he sleeps until 3:30am! That’s amazing for a newborn! We feed him and put him down again and he sleeps until 8 or 9am. YES we are thanking the Heavenly Father for that! The only thing that remains really difficult is breastfeeding. We had difficulty from day one and by day 3 we had to put him on formula. He does wonderfully on formula but now my own milk has suffered. I’m on expensive herbal supplements that are supposed to help but so far - no luck andI really am beginning to think that I need to move on. I will give it one more week, but at least I am ok with this decision. As I said before, last week I was pretty upset about everything and this was a BIG item on the list.

Dominic is such a joy to us, there is no doubt in our minds that he is a gift from God. I continue to hope and pray that I can be the mom that He wants me to be.

Thanks to everyone who has come to visit us, bring us food, or simply gave us a call. It has been so uplifting and encouraging to hear from friends during this life changing moment. Nothing can *really* prepare you for this change, but it sure is a lot easier when you have friends and family by your side.

Here are a few pictures from week 2…

Dominic is now over a week old.  It’s just so hard to believe.  He’s a pretty good little sleeper and is just a joy to hold and care for.  Life has been busy with us trying to adjust to his/our routine, which we still don’t have but are working on. I truly love being a father and there is just something amazing about when he looks up at you with his big eyes full of trust.

Here again are the set of photos from the first few days in the hospital and here’s another set with general photos which I’ll keep updating/adding to at random (if you care to, you can subscribe to the RSS feed with google reader for updates).

I’ve also put together a few clips from the first 5 days of his life:

Click here to see the video in High Definition OR if you don’t see a video in your RSS reader.

I’m laying here next to Lori and our new baby and all I can say is we are blessed.  He is such a wonderul child.

Here are a just few photos I’ve captured:

I’ve also captured some video and there’s one funny and (potentially) embarrassing clip that lori took of me with little Dominic, be patient with the video updates those take longer to produce and I’m beat!

For now here are photos my best friend Richard took from last night to this early this morning.  He also took more photos this evening and will update the page.

A big thanks to the crew of family and friends who came out to the hospital to show us support, though it was a long journey and we didn’t get to visit much your presence and endurance meant the world to us.

Thanks to all those who sent text messages, emails and posts of encouragement I read them all and your words helped when things felt tough or unchanging.  It’s a blessing to feel loved and encouraged.

I plan on blogging about the labor experience but I just don’t have the rest / mental focus / desire to remember it all yet! :)

Well it was a long one, labor that is. Finally ending in a C-Section. We finally found out why:

Dominic Angelo Alberico Born: 7/13/08 at 05:56. 9 lbs, 20.5 inches.

For now here is a crappy cell phone pic, until I can recoup a little.

Well actually Lori is doing most of the laboring right now, I’m here for support.  It all started at 2am with contractions that woke Lori up.  We made it to the hospital about 7:30ish and in Labor and Deliver triage for about 30 - 45 minutes until they determined we’d be staying and transferred us to the lush delivery room.

I get a decent cell signal in the Delivery room so I’ll keep the twitter feed updated. http://twitter.com/angeloandlori

Will also try to post a quick cell camera shot soon after he’s born.

We’re both so excited and tired still more to go!

Well, it’s offical. Dominic did not make it on his due date so consider him ‘late.’

I didn’t think that I would be as bothered by this as I am. What’s a few more days, right? Yeah well, wrong.  This past week has been pretty uncomfortable - braxton hicks (aka false labor contractions) have been attacking me every time I sit in a comfy chair and my little boy has been enjoying raming his head into my cervix - or as I like to call it - the ol’ ice pick to the crotch! Ouch!  Not to mention that I get a million calls a day from people to see if I’ve exploded yet. I almost feel like I’m letting people down when they utter the words, “You haven’t had that baby YET???!” Uh, no cuz see, I REALLY like posing as a whale, but thanks. In all seriousness I know people are just checking on me because they care. I really appreciate that. But, I promise you will see the Bat Signal with the time comes.

Ah well, I guess I shouldn’t complain, I’ve had it pretty easy. I’ll just continue to watch the clock tick by and watch as much crappy day time television as I can. Sigh…

Hey, I’ll be you BFF if you throw a prayer my way. Thanks.

We’re still waiting for our little guy to arrive.

We had a nice 4th of July yesterday.  Early part of the day was spent watching a few movies and enjoying the AC.  Later in the evening we headed over to the Drobeck’s house to celebrate the USA’s birthday with food, bocce and fireworks.

I have many fond memories (from my younger years) spent with their family and it’s always so fun to celebrate with them.  Steve is a LOL riot and he out did himself again when he pulled out this firework the size of a bucket, I nearly peed myself I was laughing so hard!

This year we also celebrated with the newest member of their family Emma Rose. It was fun to watch her react to the festivities (once she woke up) and then to the fireworks.  I so look forward to having a baby to celebrate our upcoming holidays with family and friends.  I also look forward to helping make many joyful memories for him.

BAH!  I’m rambling and nostalgic.

Here’s the meat of the post. We did the fireworks in the backyard this year, it was nice and private feeling. I setup the camera on a tripod and let it roll to record the night’s fireworks show.  I sped up the video / time compressed it down to a little over 11 minutes.  It’s fun re-watching the 900 times I nearly burned my legs or arms, all in good fun!  This year I saved one of the dogs from jumping right into the about to erupt firework, crazy dog!

I just looked outside the door and saw that some local Lakewood Real Estate agent stuck a flag in our lawn.  We also just finished watching the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating competition, so it’s now officially the 4th of July!

Happy Birthday USA.  Have a good day everyone and be safe.  Lets all make the air smokey with fireworks!

Last night after dinner and yummy s’mores, Lori, Donovan and I decided to play some Rock Band. Lori played the drums… she’s currently 39.5/40 weeks pregnant! For the grand finale song we played “Run to the Hills” which is a pretty hard song. So she played on medium and scored a 92%!

We were hoping by rocking out so hard that maybe it would encourage little Dominic to make an appearance. Apparently he likes Rock music and is still just feeling too comfortable.

I really do have the best wife ever!