Welcome, Andrew Joseph!

After months of preparing, we were prepared for the newest member of our family to arrive!

 I was feeling huge, tiring of carrying the extra weight around but unwilling to ask my doctor if my C-section could be done sooner.  (Andy and I think the above photo, taken after church on Easter, might be in the running for Worst Easter Portrait, ever!)  An ultrasound technician had predicted our little guy would not be so little and I was scheduled to see my doctor on April 13, to discuss this news.  Would she want to move the C-section up from April 26th? 

 We'll never know.  Early in the morning of April 12th, around 3am, I was awake and uncomfortable.  This should have been a clear sign that it wasn't going to be just any Thursday.  But I was half asleep and completely unhappy.  Even at 9 months pregnant, I've never had trouble sleeping and I become irritated when anything keeps me from my sleep!  What kept me awake were contractions.   They were not terribly painful though and didn't seem to be productive.  What did I know, though?  This was my third baby but I'd never gone into labor naturally, so I was pretty unqualified to know how productive these contractions were.

I went on with my morning, trying to sleep until 5, when I'd normally be getting up anyway.  Andy dropped the girls off at Campbell's (for the bus) and Polk's (for preschool) and I realized after he was gone that we'd forgotten to put the new license plate on the van.  It's a small thing but in retrospect it seems funny to me that I was in labor while doing some mundane things like changing the license plate!  On the way to work I drank a delicious smoothie and began timing contractions.  It surprised me to see that they were less than ten minutes apart but still not really consistent.  They were uncomfortable but not painful.  This wasn't feeling like the labor that had been described to me by so many friends.  It couldn't possibly be the real thing.

From around 9:00 the contractions were five minutes apart and stayed that way until I quit timing them at around noon.  I informed my coworkers during our staff meeting that I was having regular contractions and had called my doctor.  They cheered!  Everyone was so excited to meet this baby that they were paying no attention to my insistence that this surely was a false alarm.  After calling my doctor's office and following their instructions to drink water, lie down, etc. the contractions continued and by 11:00 I was concerned about my elevated blood sugar.  Of course, Andy knew all along how things were going and he became pretty sure that I would need to go to the doctor.  He didn't think this was the real deal, either, but was pretty sure my blood sugar would need to be monitored.

By 1:00 my doctor had decided that I at least needed to be monitored.  My coworkers were elated but also concerned and insisted that someone follow me to the hospital.  I drove from Indianapolis to the hospital in Franklin with no problem and when I got there, Peg walked me in.  Still thinking this was probably a false alarm, I walked into the maternity ward at 1:30. The monitor showed that my contractions were the real thing and that they were 3 minutes apart, lasting 45 seconds each.  We weren't going home, that was the day!

At 4:26pm on April 12, 2012, our son was born!!  He weighed 9lbs, 7 ounces and was 21 inches long.  We thought he was coming today and instead he is two weeks old!!  Andrew Joseph (A.J.) is the sweetest, snuggliest little guy we've ever seen and every single one of us is enjoying every single minute with him.

After spending his first night on oxygen, we finally got to hold him the next morning.

 Two days later, he was ready to go home!  We took a bilirubin light home with us and AJ layed on it for three and a half days, until his levels were much better.  Since then, he's been problem free and sweet as can be!