Introducing Kaden Michael Wentzel!

Alright, it's been two weeks since the birth of our son and I'm FINALLY getting around to posting a bunch of photos. Sorry for the delay!

The last couple of weeks have been very hard as I've been slowly healing from a difficult labor, delivery and post-partum recovery problems. I won't go into all of the gory details here... Let's just say that things did not go very smoothly. We had hoped to deliver naturally with no pain medications or medical interventions, but that birth plan went out the window before we even arrived at the hospital. Our little man was a little too comfortable in the womb and so, at 42 weeks, I had to be induced. We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am on Monday, Aug. 12th. The doctors slowly started giving me drugs to help get my contractions going. After several hours I still wasn't progressing, and I was exhausted and starving since they don't let you eat anything after you are admitted. They gave me stronger drugs. I tried to hold out without pain medication as long as I could, but around 11:00 pm it was just too much. So they gave me some narcotics through an IV, and then placed a spinal block which numbed my entire body from the belly down to give me some rest and allow me to relax enough to let my labor progress. We are thankful that the spinal block worked quickly and spared me the worst of the pain which enabled me to push him out without a C-section or using a vacuum or anything like that. But it caused some serious side effects and problems for me once the drugs wore off. More on that later.

I was so thankful to have James there with me the whole time, as well as a supportive nursing staff. He was such a big encouragement and coached me through the entire process. He even held one of my legs up and guided me through the pushing process, encouraging me by reporting that he could see the baby's head, etc. He's normally extremely squeamish and was not planning to watch any of what was going on down below. But in the end I think we were both glad that he was so involved and got to witness the (somewhat gross) miracle of our son's birth!

After 26 hours of labor, our beautiful baby boy was born the morning of August 13th! It was immediately apparent why the pushing took so long. He's a BIG baby! 8 lbs, 14 oz., 21.5 inches long! But he was healthy and beautiful and we were so excited to finally meet him. James and I decided to wait until he was born to name him, so we took a couple of minutes to get acquainted. Then my husband named his son Kaden Michael. Kaden means "fighter" and Michael represents the archangel Michael who is the head of God's armies. It's our prayer that our son will grow up to be a strong spiritual warrior whose faith will make a big difference in the world!

tears of joy after a 26 hour labor of love

the proud papa and his boy

the stats

meeting Aunt Claire!

After the delivery, they stitched me up, cleaned Kaden up, and then moved us into another room where we would spend a couple of nights recovering and bonding before heading home. On the one hand, that time was extremely fun as we got to snuggle with our little guy and celebrate finally being parents! We just couldn't get over how cute he is. Already, we can tell that he is a mix of the two of us. From the eyes up, Kaden looks just like James, with big blue eyes and blonde hair. But his nose, mouth, cheeks and chin definitely come from the Zuercher side of the family. I snapped the photo below on my phone and was struck by how much he looks like my dad and brother. Looks like we have another baby trumpet cheeks in the family!

One of the most fun parts of that first day was hearing that our close friends Caleb and Jordan were also in labor at the same time. Turns out our boys were born on the same day! James and Caleb kept walking our into the hallway to have short pow wows as their wives were in labor. Then they had the pleasure of introducing their sons (who will, of course, be best friends from now on). Below you can see the two proud papas with their boys. Caleb and Jordan's son is named Jack.

We ended up staying in the hospital for about 3 days after Kaden was born. The Labor & Delivery ward was getting very crowded as more people came in ready to have their babies, so they moved us to a room down the hall in the multi-care unit for the last day to free up a bed. They said they chose us to be moved because, of everyone on the floor, we were in the best shape. I found that hard to believe as we were coping with a lot of issues. Between painful perennial tears, nausea from the medications, a throbbing spinal headache, a baby who constantly cried because I wasn't producing enough milk to feed him, and my crazy hormonal mood swings, those first few days were rough. But the doctors took good care of us and got us to the point where we were ready to go home.

bundled up in the car seat and ready to go

Saying farewell to the hospital (for now)

He was a perfect angel all the way home. I was the one crying and in pain as we left the security of the hospital. haha

Our first few days at home were also a challenge. I am so thankful that James had some time off from work so we could settle into our new roles as parents as a team. The headaches that resulted from getting the spinal block made me really nauseous and made it very difficult for me to function. I also ended up getting an infection and a crazy, itchy rash all over thanks to my changing hormone levels that made me even more uncomfortable. Luckily, we have some amazing friends here in Osan who were willing to come over and help, holding our baby when we needed some rest and giving us advice when we needed reassurance. We often joked that it's a good thing he is so cute and sweet, because delivering him did a number on my body.

 Pain and sleepless nights aside, there were many exciting and joyful moments too. Kaden is a pretty mellow, sweet baby when his belly is full. (If he's hungry - which he almost always is - he definitely lets us know!) He's been incredibly alert from day one and often enjoys looking around and exploring. He's already got a very expressive face and makes some very cute cooing noises after he sneezes. It's been fun watching him learn and grow and develop. We are so proud of our little boy!

The Sunday after he was born we drove back up to Seoul for Kaden's first well-baby check up. As I said in an email to family later that day, what started as a simple check up for Kaden rapidly turned into a intervention for an unhealthy mama. When we arrived at the hospital, my spinal headache was killing me so I asked the hospital staff if I could lie down while we waited for the pediatrician. They could immediately tell I wasn't doing so well, so they called the anesthesiologist to come in and take a look at me. We decided it would be worth performing a blood patch to help seal up the hole in my spine and hopefully take care of my head ache. It was a pretty invasive procedure, but praise God it worked. A day or two later, once the pain in my lower back subsided, my headache was gone and I started feeling remarkably better. Up until that point I was not feeling up to being in any pictures (shock!) So it was a very exciting day when I asked James to snap a few photos of me and my precious baby!

 Every day, things are slowly getting better as we figure out how best to take care of Kaden. He is a healthy, growing boy who gets stronger and stronger every day. He's already trying to hold up his head and likes to try and "help" me nurse him by grabbing and pushing things around with his strong little arms and legs. He's started sleeping through the night already, though the 3-6 hours leading up to bedtime currently involve non-stop feeding, which is tiring. Again, we are thankful he is so cute. ;^)

Here are a few more pictures I've snapped. Now that I'm feeling better and our schedule is starting to regulate a bit, I should be able to update the blog with pictures and stories much more frequently!

baby smiles! Not intentional yet, but we still love seeing them.

Play date with his best friend Jack!