Siblings

Was trying to get a good shot for the back of the birth announcement.

Resting after all of the torture.  Thank you, Grandma, for the awesome port-a-crib!  

Sweet Sam

  

.Four.

This may make sense only to a sleep-deprived mind, but when I was looking back over these pictures I had this strange realization.  I knew the baby was mine.  I knew the other three were mine.  But I wasn't thinking of them as my four children.  I had them somehow separated in my mind.  It always feels like that for a few days when you bring home a new life, when you're trying to merge the old and familiar with the new and the mysterious.

It dawned on me quite suddenly and surprisingly that it wasn't three children and a baby I was looking at- it was my four children interacting. 

What a huge responsibility.  What a blessing. 

It is a humbling and inspiring experience, giving birth.

I am always delighted in these newborn days because I come to the Lord with nothing but rejoicing.

It's a time when my senses are highly attuned to His miraculous creation and all of the great things He's given us, done for us.

Great things of which I am so undeserving.

And when I sit and nurse sweet Sam, looking over all the tiny parts I could grab through my skin over the past months, and now seeing them with my own eyes, my heart spouts off thanks and praises to our great God in an unusually easy way. 

The praises just tumble out like pressurized water bursting through a crack in a dam.  It's always easy to praise Him on the mountain tops, isn't it?  But I know I am praising the great God who gives and takes away, which brings a sweet vulnerability to it all.

How sweet it is to praise a God Who is always working things together for our GOOD- and our children's good- on the peaks and in the valleys-

-because He is GOOD indeed. 

Sammy Likes Cisco

One Week Old Already!

So Samuel Thomas is here at last!  He came weighing 7 lbs, 15 oz. and 20 inches long.  Here are some unedited pictures from the hospital and coming home:

I walked around 3 cm for a week, but to no avail... the little guy still held out till induction day- May 13th.

The induction was scheduled for 4AM but we were asked to come later because at that time there was no room at the inn.  So it was more like 7 something that we actually began.  (Shaun took these before I changed into the oh-so-lovely gown.) 

It wasn't a quick labor.  They broke my water first and then had to tighten the heart monitors because my stomach was already much smaller- NO WONDER it was so heavy to carry around this past month!  Imagine carrying a bucket of water around (of course a lot of you reading this have "been here done this" so you don't need the drawn-out description.)  But it does explain why it looks like you could pop my stomach in the above picture with a needle, doesn't it?

Anyway, they broke my water and the contractions were still mild, so they started Pitocin and still- mild contractions... they upped the dose a few times.  I was 4 cm, then 6... then contractions got rough so I got an epidural and was checked again and found to be 7-8, so no wonder they were getting rough... transition was about to set in- during which I vomited.  And then vomited some more.  My epidural was uneven- all on my left side, so I had to lay on my right to have it trickle to that side of my body.  Still, I could feel this radiating pain from my hip down to my thigh whenever a contraction came- I can't imagine what that would've felt like without the epidural!  (I mean, I can- I even felt it fully before with Evan- but I don't want to revisit it.)  From there things went fast and when it came time to push, out came Sam in only three contractions!  Easiest delivery yet in the way of pushing!  (The vomiting, not so much.)  The nurse was actually saying to me WHILE I WAS HEAVING that it was great- so great- because it would help push the baby out.  I wanted to THROW the vomit bucket at her and I may or may not have given her a mean glare.  BUT, seems she was right.  What do you know, her decades of experience actually won out. 

Sam- meet your daddy.  This man ROCKS.  He has patiently and insistently waited on us hand and foot all week.  He has COOKED (big mistake because now I know he CAN,) he has cleaned up, he has brought me Advil and refilled water and tossed dirty diapers and taken kids to get groceries and let me nap.  He said he wanted this to be a magical week for me in my memory and has gone above and beyond to make it happen.  Right now, he is holding you so I can type this.  Today is his last day off and I miss him already.

Most appreciated of all, he has entertained and cared for your siblings with extreme patience and attentiveness; untiring even when I know he has been exhausted, fun-lovingly even when I know his ears are probably bleeding (I never knew how loud our house was until I came home from the hospital).

This was the only picture we got of the kids visiting before a nurse walked in and said she couldn't register a temperature for the baby and was very concerned and ran off with him.  She was the kind of person who was annoyed with us before she stepped foot in the room... maybe because of all the kids in the room, maybe because her boss was a jerk to her, maybe because she was constipated... who knows.  But it made it difficult to tell if there was a real emergency or if she was just being dramatic to teach us a lesson... maybe she thought we needed birth control, maybe she thought kids shouldn't be around a baby, maybe she was just really constipated... who knows...

But Shaun turned to me and said, "I want to follow her, what was that all about?!"  To which I said, "um, YES, follow her.  Go, go..." and waved him out the door. 

The hospital was short on staff our entire stay, therefore there was only the doctor and one nurse in our room when we delivered... therefore poor little Sam lay on the table and cried for a bit before he was tended to.  This is the only reason I can conclude that he had a really low temperature and got so cold.  I do wonder why the nurse in the room never picked up on it and let me feed him before warming him (the temp drops more during feeding as they burn calories just to eat.)  Anyway, after one of the longest hours ever, he had warmed up under a NICU nurse's care and was brought back to us.  Never had another low temp or problem from there on.  But we did have to stay 48 hours seeing as how I was Beta Strep positive and they had to wait on tests to make sure the temp drop wasn't somehow related.

So that's "the birth story"... and so now, just more pictures...

The finger tracks in the icing make it, don't you think?

 

 

 

 

Oh and ps- I should also say a big THANK YOU to my mom who cooked for us and took the kids to a birthday party, on a nature walk, and you know- totally filled in while we were gone. 

 

And pps- thanks to those who have brought meals the week before he came and now after!  And I am sorry I haven't called anyone, but I will!!  SOON!!