On Monday, April 22
we celebrated two birthdays! We
celebrated Liz's birthday and welcomed a daughter into our family.
Liz started her
birthday off by going into labor. The
baby wasn't due for another week, so she wasn't anticipating going into labor
that day. We scrambled to find someone
to help us get the school kids on the bus and to take care of children and
appointments throughout the day.
Fortunately Liz's contractions slowed down a bit so we could get the
kids out the door for school before we left for the hospital.
The labor and
delivery went very smoothly. The doctors
gave Liz a whiff of Pitocin, which was all it took to kickstart her labor into
high gear again. The delivery nurse
actually lives in our neighborhood, and has children at the same school and
same grades as some of our children. She
did a great job, and when it finally came time to push, it took only 1 strong
push for the baby to come out. It went
so smoothly the doctor didn't seem to have to do much other than catch!
Our baby girl was
born at 3:14 pm. She's beautiful, very
healthy and came in at 8 lbs 3 oz, 20 inches long. We named her Megan Michelle. Sometimes we call her M&M. Since we often call our babies
"peanut" when they're so small, she's our little "peanut
M&M".
The hospital offers
a bistro meal for the new parents. Since
it was still Liz's birthday we opted for the bistro meal that evening, just
hours after delivering Megan. So we celebrated
both birthdays over an incredible meal of steak and lobster.
For Family Home
Evening that night our six other children came to the hospital to meet Number
Seven. It was getting late, but we're so
glad they came and got to see her and hold her.
They absolutely adore their little sister! Two-year old Amy couldn't stop patting her
little sister on the head and telling her, "Hi baby, I Amy!"
It turns out Megan
isn't our only recent addition. We're in
the middle of a major home addition and kitchen renovation as well, which we
were hoping to complete before the baby came but is actually now just starting
to ramp up and will last several more months.
The two days we were in the hospital were the most complex in terms of
our remodel, and involved the careful placement of a steel beam above the
kitchen. Talk about timing!
We found out later
from our contractor about a miracle that occurred while we were at the hospital
having the baby. As they were doing some
of the kitchen demo in preparation for the placement of the steel beam, they
faced a major structural dilemma with one of the existing beams in our house,
which threatened to delay their plan to put in the new steel beam and
potentially postpone it by several weeks.
They contacted our structural engineer, who lives and works over an hour
away in Denver. Amazingly, he was at a
nearby job site only 10 minutes away, and his appointment had just ended
early. He came right over, came up with
a solution to the problem, and our contractor was able to install the steel
beam the next day as planned!
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| The footprint of our addition. The kids think it's our new dance floor. |
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| Installing the steel beam above our kitchen |
We actually had a
lot of tender miracles this week, but I'll just mention one more. Since the remodel is really noisy during the
day and much of it is taking place right next to the master bedroom, we decided
to set up a bed in the basement in the farthest corner of the house away from
the construction so Liz can get some rest during the day. I went to Costco and found a mattress, but
wondered how I would get it home. Right
then a friend from our ward walked by and said hello. I asked him if he happened to bring his truck
to the store, which he did. We both did
our shopping, then we loaded up the mattress and frame in his truck, which he
transported to our house and helped me get them down to the basement. It was incredible that he walked by at
precisely the moment I was pulling out my phone to see who I could text to ask
for help.
This afternoon I
printed out all 7 letters I've written to our children while in the hospital,
telling them a little about their birth, how we picked their name, and how much
their dad loves them. I handed them out to
each child for the first time, then I took some time reading the letters aloud
for anyone who wanted to listen. The
kids really enjoyed reading and hearing those letters; I'm so glad I took the
time to write them. I think it was Liz's
idea when Sarah was born. We also spent
time looking at pictures of each of the children when they were born,
reminiscing, and admiring how cute everyone is.
Megan is almost a
week old now. She's super cute and loves
being held. She can be fussy when she's
hungry or wants to be held. Of course our
children love to hold her, and we've been encouraging our children to spend
time holding Megan every day and enjoy this magical time with her while she's
so tiny and sweet.
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| Getting ready to check out of the hospital |
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| Megan has no shortage of siblings who love to hold her |
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| Leaving the hospital |
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| Home at last! Note the torn up kitchen in the background. Good thing Megan won't remember it. |
