And then there were 5!

Well, in an odd turn of events, both my due date and the old wive's gender predictions were correct!  While I clearly had 9 months to prepare, I can't say I was fully prepared for John to make his arrival on Thursday!  Emotionally, waiting 11 days for Catherine was incredibly difficult so I had prepared myself to wait, possibly more than I had prepared for actually giving birth.  Oops!    Mostly I was oddly worried I didn't know what labor "felt" like (which I realize sounds crazy for a 3rd time around!)  With Catherine I went into false labor 4 days before she came so I was hesitant to get my hopes up about any twinges or pains and with Matthew my water clearly broke before I felt any contractions so I was kinda hopeless this time around. 

Long story short, the key to going into labor was clearly booking my Thursday calendar with lots of events and obligations that would need to be canceled by email inbetween contractions Wednesday night :-)  Wednesday night as I was reading to the kids I felt some strange pains but nothing that necessarily felt too different from being kicked in the pelvis, which was little guy's M.O. for the past few weeks anyway.  Moral of the story, I was awake all night with contractions and about 7am we decided to head into the hospital.  The other midwife nearly sent me home because I hadn't really progressed, which was also difficult to hear after being up all night timing contractions.   Things obviously picked up quickly because before noon, we welcomed John Vincent into the world!  

James and I love family names (especially boys names, girl names are a bit harder) so it was time to name a little one after Pas (James' dad) and after daddy himself (Vincent is one of James' middle names).  It also does double duty as both John and Vincent are Pozun names as well, including being named after a great uncle John Vincent, a Papa Vince and a great-grandfather John.  

And the first picture:

 Exhaustion after getting cleaned up by the nurses.  We got to cuddle for a few hours before they took his weight.  The nurses had guessed about 8 lbs, I think we were all shocked when the scale read 9!

Poor James was a rock star through my labor and with the baby and I somehow didn't get any pictures of him and John at the hospital!  He however got a few of me this time which is always appreciated, even if I'm a hot mess.  

Once we got settled into our recovery room it was time for naps

 and visitors!!  Two very excited kiddos and an excited Amma came to meet their little brother/newest grandson:

 Catherine (who hadn't been able to keep her hands off my belly before we left) crawled right up to get her hands all over baby John!  Matthew unfortunately was a little hesitant about my hep-lock and it took him a while to warm up.

 Eventually he was ready to assume big brother duties:

 Unfortunately baby John was ready to eat:

 So we busted out the birthday cupcakes the kids had made!  They picked the frosting regardless of gender :-)

 The next morning after they dropped Matthew off, Amma and Catherine couldn't resist one more visit with the little guy:

 We dressed John in the going home outfit the kids picked out for him.  He was pumped!

 And while we waited for the final green light for the nurses we tried our first tummy time.

 My three favorite guys:

 A very proud brother!  He even got to sit in the teacher's chair at school on Thursday to share his news.  He asked me to send this picture to his teacher :-)

 Some very excited siblings:

On Saturday, James and Amma took these wild ones to the Children's Museum while I recovered from a looooong night #2 with the little man. 

I played around with some photos:

 And capturing the "little old man" phase.

 By the evening we were ready to resume some of our normal family routines.  After dinner John tried some tummy time while we played games:

 And woke up to even more love and cuddles on day #3 from those big siblings:

And then he had to put up with mommy doing a practice photo shoot.  I'm hoping to get enough newborn photos myself in the next few days to skip hiring a pro until we're ready for full family photos next.  It's kinda nice that I've been able to work at my own pace and didn't need to worry about timing/inviting someone else into my messy house.  Mostly, I realized since I make big, fast growing, alert babies I have to capture the newborn phase and features really, really quickly!  I remember we got photos of Matthew at 5 days but he looks about 2 months old since he was wide awake and wearing a big boy shirt!