Evan is born!

Evan made his grand entrance at 2:08 in the morning on May 8th. He let out two small sounds then the loud cry, and we were thrilled! His face was squished up, his body was bright red, and his arms and legs were moving like crazy. Finally he was able to stretch! The nurse commented that he has long fingers, and we were surprised that he could already lift his head.

Here's Evan just 17 hours old:


From the very beginning Evan has preferred to sleep on his side, usually the left. He maneuvers into position by lifting both legs straight up then letting them fall to one side, thereby rolling his whole body onto the side. We watched him do this over and over again in the hospital. He's already using kinetic energy to his advantage!

He likes having his hands near his face ...

... and he also likes hanging out with dad.

This is our first picture as a family of three. Happy and healthy, if a bit tired.

I didn't spend much time thinking about labor in advance; I just figured it would be a bumpy ride for all involved. There's an assembly whose sole purpose is to hold everything in place for nine months, then in a span of a few hours (15 for me) the mission of the assembly changes and it's supposed to do the opposite. We know from various science disciplines that nature doesn't like step changes, so therefore I didn't expect it to be a particularly pleasant experience. But it really wasn't that bad at all. The time went really fast, everyone at the hospital was great, and Jeff and I got through it as a team. (Team Schroeder we called ourselves.) And at the end of the day we had an amazing baby! Nine days early, and born the day before Mother's Day no less. Incredible.