Welcoming Baby Jon

One month ago today, Bryan and I welcomed Jon David Klinger into our lives.

Jon was born on April 25 at 10:43am and weighed 7lbs2oz, he was 21 inches long. Seems like I should have blogged about his arrival before now, but, well, this being a mommy business is kind of time consuming, and since Bryan and I both now have 200% more to do every day, blogging just wasn't a priority!

Labor was 43.5 hours. A fair amount of that was pretty easy, because I planned to have Jon naturally, and even though I had to be induced for preeclampsia (a high blood pressure condition in pregnancy), the team at MCV was willing to induce me slowly to try to achieve that. 30.5 hours in, even though Bryan was the absolute most amazing husband and labor partner a girl could ask for, Jon was facing forward and my back labor was so intense and I was so tired that I decided to get an epidural. Of course, that slowed my labor way down, and it took pitocin to get things rolling again. Another 9 hours later, it was finally time to push. By this time, though, I was exhausted, and couldn't seem to find the right power to push Jon out. I pushed for four hours before the doctors finally used forceps to get our son past that final hurdle and out into the world.

We have loved Jon since before he was born, and each day with him we love him more and more. Being parents has proven to be exactly what everyone always says before you actually earn that title: the hardest but most rewarding job in the world. Of course, what that really means and entails can't be expressed to someone who hasn't lived it. We learned that fast. At times it has been incredibly challenging and exhausting, but then Jon is in your arms, and your heart melts and you understand that it's so worth it...



I can't believe he's already a month old. It seems like forever ago that he was born, and yet it seems like no time has passed at all. And here I thought the past 10 years since I graduated college have flown by. A couple of weeks ago we went and visited my dad, and as we left his neighborhood, school buses were dropping off elementary school kids. I thought about what I was doing 5 years ago, and how recent that seems, and how in 5 years, Jon will be toting his little backpack to kindergarten... wow.

I intend to do my best to enjoy every moment of his life that I can. I am so grateful to call myself his mother, and I can't wait to watch him grow into a toddler, a boy, a man...

My son.


If you'd like to see more pictures of dear Baby Jon, you can visit our Picasaweb album by clicking here.