Amy Catherine Wheeler

After nearly 40 weeks of waiting, our adorable little girl Amy Catherine Wheeler made her grand entrance into the world on Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 10:01pm!  She was 8 lbs, 8 oz and 20 inches long.

This is the first time we’ve ever done an induction.  All of our other children were born in the middle of the night on whatever day they decided to be born.  This time around we decided to try the induction route since it was getting harder and harder for Liz to walk, get any sleep, and for logistical reasons such as being able to find babysitters for our five other children and having Liz’s doctor be the one who actually delivered the baby.  Hey, maybe we would even break the trend of having all our babies in the middle of the night.

For the most part it worked out just great, except that part about not having our baby in the middle of the night.  Even though we arrived at the hospital early in the morning on Saturday, just 3 days before the actual due date, things didn’t start to get interesting until that evening and it was almost the next day before our little Amy was born.  Perhaps she was just taking her time hugging everyone goodbye in heaven before coming down to earth.  Especially her Great Grandpa Cox, whose birthday she now shares.  But really, things went extremely smoothly, Liz’s labor was only about 4 hours, the epidural worked perfectly, and it only took about two pushes at the end for Amy to finally come out.

Amy is such as cute and sweet little baby.  She looks a lot like Sarah did when she was a newborn.  She loves to be held and cuddled.  On Sunday I took all of Amy’s big brothers and sisters to the hospital before church so they could meet and hold their baby sister.  A good friend of ours met us there and helped capture the moment on camera.  Every one of the kids fought over who got to hold her next and wanted lots of turns to hold her.  Brooklyn was especially possessive of her little sister.  The thought crossed our minds that if we can give Brooklyn the job of holding Amy all summer long to keep her out of mischief, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone!

On the way out of the hospital Michael was crying and kept saying something that sounded like “cereal”.  I asked him if we wanted cereal and he kept saying, “No.  Cereal.  Cereal!”  Then he spelled it for me: “S-E-A-L”.  He wanted the little stuffed animal seal that he had been playing with in the hospital room that Sarah had given Amy as a newborn gift!  We are so grateful that not only is Michael getting easier to understand when he talks, but that when we can’t understand what he’s saying, he can spell it to us.  And 9 times out of 10 his spelling is dead on.  He’s going to have a great year in kindergarten next year.

This is one of the best hospital experiences we’ve had while having a baby.  We had the baby in Loveland rather than Fort Collins since it was the hospital Liz’s doctor was assigned to the day of the induction.  Both hospitals are equally far away from our house, so to us it didn’t matter that much. The nurses there were great, especially at helping to watch Amy at night so Liz can get some sleep.  It’s the first time that Liz wasn’t trying to run out of the hospital as quickly as possible, but even stayed a few extra hours the last day to take advantage of the peace and quiet and take one last nap before heading back to the noise, chaos, and sleepless nights at home!

Just to give a few examples of the chaos we left and had to return to: the day before Amy was born our garage freezer quit working.  We had a big sticky mess on our hands of melted popsicles and ice cream, and were trying to figure out how to keep our other food from spoiling while we were at the hospital for a few days.  So I ran to Sears that evening to pick up a new freezer, only to discover after bringing it home that I got the wrong one and will have to take it back.  The day after Amy was born, I arrived home from being with Liz in the hospital to discover that the air conditioner in our house had quit working.  Fortunately I was able to arrange for a repairman to come first thing the next morning to fix it so Liz and Amy wouldn't have to arrive home from the hospital to a sweltering house.

We are so grateful for friends and neighbors who have watched our kids, provided meals, mowed our lawn, helped clean up our house, and provided other support during these last few days!   We could not have done it without all their help.  We're fortunate I've been able to take this week off of work as we try to get our feet back underneath us.  Liz's parents also just arrived today and will be a great help as well.

We're in love with our sweet little Amy Catherine and are so happy she's a part of our family!