First Day - Friday Oct. 29th

In the wee hours of Friday morning the excitement of having a new baby and with the adrenaline of labor still running through us, we decided to call our families.  It was 4:30 AM in our time zone and 5:30 AM in theirs.  I figured my mom would be up getting ready to go to her Zumba class, so I called my house first.  My dad answered and told me my mom had already left, so he was the first to hear the exciting news.  When I told him Dantley's name I was surprised that his response was -- "Well, I guess that is as good a name as any."   I talked with him a bit more and then decided to try mom's cell phone.  Luckily she had turned it on that morning as she drove into town to check the time and had left it on.  I got a hold of her right as she was about to go into her class.  She was excited to hear the news and called me later in the day to check on me. 

After I was finished, Jake called his house.  His dad is usually up and heading to work that early too.  Jake talked to his parents and then once it was a little bit later I called Ashlee.  I knew she would be the most likely to be awake, then I called Teri and woke her up.  After that I talked to Rob and then tried Mark, but only could leave a message.

Jake stayed and had breakfast with me and then went to the store to buy Tylenol for me so we wouldn't have to pay the outrageous hospital amount for it.  Then he headed to Maple Valley to get the kids, and have a bit of a rest before bringing them to meet their new brother.

The kids were so excited to take turns holding Dantley.

Trey was mad because he wanted to hold him not just help hold him.

He finally consented to be able to touch his head.

Tasha took this one for us.

Holy Cow!  Do I really have 4 kids!?

That afternoon he had a hearing test and his hearing was fine.  He slept a lot during the day but was a little more fussy in the evening and the first night was a bit rough.  He wants to be sucking all of the time, so I barely slept.  At 4am we were both awake so Dantley had his PKU test because he was 24 hours old.  By 6 am I decided to ask the nurse for a pacifier.  He (unlike my other 3 who didn't like pacifiers, unless forced on them) took it right away.