Welcome to the Schultz-Royer Family blog!  I can't believe Toby has been with us 11 days already - time is flying by.  My goal for the blog is at least one post a week - hopefully I can be forgiven for already missing the first week, as becoming parents turns out to be pretty distracting. 

Toby was due on June 18th, but I decided for several reasons that June 13th was a better day.  So the night before, I cooked up some eggplant parmigiana reputed to induce labor.  Matt can attest to how time-intensive and grumpiness-inducing this recipe is; perhaps that's it's magic.  We ate it at 8pm and my water broke three hours later.  In about another hour, contractions started.  They stayed slow and mild, so we went back to bed and tried to sleep.  In the morning, we got in touch with the midwives and our doula Radomi (click here to find out more about doulas).  Matt drove me in to the midwive's office to confirm that my water had broken; they let me come back home to labor.  Matt and Radomi helped me at home for several hours until contractions were firmly established.  Matt played the piano for me, we went for a walk and ate the first raspberries, and I started having strong contractions.  By mid-afternoon we headed in to the hospital with my mom in tow.  Once we were settled in the labor and delivery room, contractions got more intense and I lost track of time.  At some point Matt's mom and my friend Christina arrived.  After the overwhelming transition phase, pushing was magical.  Pushing Toby down and out took 1.5 hours, and was tremendously exciting.  Unexpectedly, I found I enjoyed having a cheering squad.  He was born at 10:11 pm.  My mom caught the baby, Matt cut the cord, and I was in charge of staring amazedly at this new little person on my chest.  We were grateful to have had the the natural birth we wanted for baby Schultz.  We named him the next day.

Little Toby got lots of visits in the hospital; by the time he was two days old, he'd met all of his grandparents!  We loved all the help we got in the hospital, and didn't enjoy all the tests, but appreciated not having to do them later.

Since then, we've been getting to know little Toby Sage.  He loves to suck, so breastfeeding has been mostly effortless, but sleeping has been anything but.  He's extremely handsome (we think), and impressively strong (confirmed at his first well-baby visit).  We think he might grow up to be a superhero.  We've had great support in these first few weeks at home; our moms stuck around for a week to cook and clean, hold the baby and do the laundry.  They also took pictures and gave us time to do the same. 

Since they've left, local friends have taken over the dishes and brought us more food.  We feel really lucky.  When he's two weeks old, Matt will go back to work full-time and I'll start taking over more of the day-to-day housework and working as I can - aiming to finish my dissertation in a year so we can have more doctors in the family.  Especially more of the less-useful kind.  :)  Stay tuned for more stories, photos, and maybe even video if we can figure out how to make my camera do it.