Rhys Christopher Ronquillo is here!

Wow, I can't believe I now have five grandchildren! Here I am in Athens, Georgia helping Holli Jo after the birth of her firstborn in the wilderness. Little Rhys (pronounced Reese) was born on August 7, 2008 and weighed 6 lbs. 9 oz. and was 19 3/4" long. The labor and birth was very long and difficult for Holli, and I must say, it is much harder watching your daughter go through the valley of the shadow of death than it is going through it yourself! She started labor at about 10:00a.m. on August 6th, and didn't deliver until 1:13 p.m. (not to be confused with 1:13 a.m.) on August 7th, so it was a long, hard process. She was having very hard labor, but not getting any results for her efforts. We thought he would never get here!

I feel so blessed that I was able to be there for the miracle of his birth.

He is just the cutest little thing ever. The thing is though, he doesn't really like to nurse, so we have been having sessions with "lactation consultants" a few times. I now feel like I myself could be a lactation consultant since I have learned everything I never knew I didn't know about lactation. For instance, did you know newborns can drink from a cup? I didn't, but they can actually do it very well. The reason we know this is because Rhys was getting quite jaundiced, so the Dr. wanted Holli to give him formula at every feeding. That's all fine and well, but we soon discovered that little Rhys (who wasn't a very strong nurser anyway) LOVES his food, wants it NOW, and doesn't want to work hard for it. He actually has a bit of a temper when it concerns getting his food. So giving him a bottle wasn't working too well, since Holli would still like to breast feed when his billirubin goes back down. (his nickname is now Billy Reuben, after his Aunt Billy Sue and Great Grandpa Reuben..............well, we haven't actually called him that, but we joked about it.) Anyway, the cup drinking is one way to get the formula into him without confusing him with a strange rubber nipple. But the most ingenious way is this little thing that attaches to the bottle and has a little, tiny tube coming from it that you lay along the momma's nipple (if all this talk about nipples is too much for you, sorry............but it is just the norm around here these days.) anyway, then when the baby latches on he is tricked into thinking he is getting the milk from his Mom. Pretty cool. This is just until her own milk comes in. The thing is, this is a two person job, so I have been getting up to help Holl every two hours all night and so got zero sleep, since I couldn't fall asleep between feedings. Luckily I got to fall asleep at around 5:00 and they let me sleep in after that. Johnny better hope Rhys is a nursing fool by the time I go home on Friday, or he will be the new lactation consultant around here! But enough about lactation. This baby is a cutie patootie! We just found out his billirubin has gone down a little (yay!) and Holli is pretty sure her milk is coming in today, so things are looking up.

I would love to know what he is thinking about! I'm happy to be here, and loving my newest grandbaby!