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<\/p>\nWe’re still culling pictures from the relatives (things were a little too hectic for me to do any quality photo-snapping), but here is a preview of little Penelope Wynn Suffern:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She’s beautiful, like her mommy.<\/p>\n
She was born at 1:25 p.m. on August 30, weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and was 19 in. long. Diane had been progressing smoothly through the last stages of pregnancy for some time, and around 1 a.m. on Thursday morning started having some pretty intense labor pain. We timed the contractions and decided it was time to make the (1\/2 mile) trip to the hospital. They admitted us and we got situated. Diane got an epidural for the pain mid-morning and was ready to start pushing just after noon. She pushed beautifully through a couple of contractions and our little girl was among us. It was amazing and incredibly special. <\/p>\n
Mother and daughter got cleaned up and bonded for a few minutes. After that Penelope visited the nursery for a little bit while I followed. We spent a couple of nights in the hospital and returned home on Saturday morning. Both sets of parents were an incredible and essential help–Diane’s with watching Luke during the hospital visit and mine staying with us over the weekend while we settled in, among many other things.<\/p>\n
The first couple of nights were rough but overall Penelope is very calm and a great sleeper. She slept like a champ last night. Diane swaddles her and I think that’s a big reason she’s as docile as she is. We fed her right before bedtime at 9:30. She woke up exactly twice (around 12:30 and 3:30), chirped a couple of times to let us know she was hungry, then waited patiently for me to get up, retrieve her and hand her to Diane. The feeding and changing went like clockwork and she conked out when we put her down again. I hear the first week can be easy but I sure hope this continues.<\/p>\n
One of the special things about the event is her birthday: August 30, same as my maternal grandmother’s. Gran is the only grandparent I have left and in many respects the focal point, not to say matriarch of that side of the family. Soon after I was born 28 years ago, her husband, my maternal grandfather, passed away after a long battle with mental illness. The nature of his ailment in the decades leading up to his passing meant that Gran had to take a quasi-leadership role in the direction and sustenance of the family, setting a precedent for strong, educated women in her daughters and granddaughters and hopefully, great-granddaughters. To me it was very much as if a generational “torch” had been “passed” last Thursday when Pen was born, Gran’s first great-granddaughter. Neither has yet been able to make the trip but I hope they will see each other soon.<\/p>\n
Much more to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’re still culling pictures from the relatives (things were a little too hectic for me to do any quality photo-snapping), but here is a preview of little Penelope Wynn Suffern: She’s beautiful, like her mommy. She was born at 1:25 p.m. on August 30, weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and was 19 in. long. Diane […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}