In the Past Month...

First of all, here's my apology for not sending out any Christmas letter/card/picture this year. Yes, I was too much of a slug to even get anything out via email. But I figured you all would be forgiving since I just a baby ripped out of my uterus and all.

But, boy, am I glad he came out when he did! I was so uncomfortable. After the doc stitched me up following the c-section, the nurses warned me not to work my abs too much for a while-- they had to stitch up some abdominal muscles I apparently had torn. Gee, no wonder I was in excruciating pain so often! And here I thought it was just round ligament pain.

So little Drew Nathaniel was born Sunday December 7th at 7:49am. He weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz., and was 21 1/2 in. long. As much as that's a good-size kid, he wasn't huge, which is what I was expecting. After all, Kevin had weighed 9lbs. 12 oz. at birth, so I was expecting a monster of a baby. But he was only an ounce bigger than Sami had been.

I had been scheduled for a c-section on the 9th, but started feeling sporadic contractions on the 5th, the day of Allie's ballet recital. I prayed I could just make it to see Allie dance, and I did.

Then the next evening the contractions suddenly became regular, consistent-- three minutes apart, lasting nearly a minute each. I called the doctor on call, and in spite of how close the contractions were, he didn't seem concerned-- just told me to rest and drink some hot tea or water to see if they slowed. I drank some water while resting on the couch, and they did seem to slow a bit. So I went to bed. I awoke at about 1:30am, the contractions having returned. Thirty minutes later I woke Kevin up to time me, and the contractions just continued to intensify-- one minute twenty-five seconds apart, lasting one minute. I could no longer really talk through them. I knew we had to get to the hospital, so we came up with a short list of people we could call in the middle of the night to stay here with the girls. We called Linda Samuels. She answered on the first ring, and was here within twenty minutes.

By the time we got the the hospital, it was after three. The nurse in labor and delivery got my belly hooked up to a monitor and stuck me with an IV. Her reasoning was that they'd get me started as if I were going to have a c-section, hoping the IV fluid would slow down the contractions so they could send me home-- since it was the weekend, the doctor on call was delivering for my doctor, and everyone involved preferred for me to be delivered by my doctor. That was not to be.

Five o'clock rolled around, and the contractions continued at the same pace, the pain only having intensified. With each contraction I would grab the mattress on the hospital bed, whimpering, trying to relax the rest of my body. It was excruciating. And with them coming at me every minute, I had little relief. Each time a contraction would end, I'd immediately fall asleep just to be awakened by another contraction a minute later. By this time, the nurse knew I needed to deliver, so she called the doctor and anesthesiologist. Both were on their way. Little did anyone know that right when the anesthesiologist would walk in, he would be summoned to the ER because of the victims of a gun war that had just come in. Lovely. The nurse checked my progress with the thought that if I had been progressing rapidly enough she could tell the ER that I was just as much of an emergency. I was dilated to a 1. A one! That's it! After all that pain! Typical. I was not a priority.

The nurse wanted to cry for me, so she put some medicine in the IV that "took the edge" off the contractions a bit... and made me dizzy-- so much that I could only sleep to keep from being cross-eyed. So I slept through the next hour of contractions. By then the anesthesiologist was ready for me, and I was finally prepped for the c-section. And by 7:49 we had a baby boy! I didn't even realize they had pulled him out at first. He didn't cry. He had swallowed meconium, and needed to be suctioned out before crying to keep any of it from entering the lungs.

After the nurse had wheeled me into recovery, Kev came in with the baby name book in hand. Yes, it's true-- we still hadn't picked a name. He said he came across a name he kind of liked-- Drew. Huh. Drew. I liked it, too. So after a day of mulling it over, we went with it. Nathaniel being the middle name of one of Kevin's ancestors, Jesse Nathaniel Smith.

My parents came to help several days after Drew was born. They stayed for a week, washing dishes, doing laundry, taking Allie to school, driving me to doctor's appointments, keeping the girls entertained, etc. Allie's school Christmas sing-along program was that week, so they got to see her sing with her class. They left several days before Christmas. Unfortunately, Dad came down with a nasty case of the flu a few days before they left. He spend those last days here sleeping, occasionally emerging briefly to get a drink of water.

This was the first Christmas we've had with such a small baby, but at least we didn't have to travel, nor did we have to entertain. We spent half the day in our PJs. Quite nice, actually.