The Birth Story

 Wow, I can't believe it has been a month since I woke up to celebrate our ninth anniversary.  God has been so good and gracious to us.  His plans never cease to amaze me.

As many of you know, I was expecting my fifth child.  His due date was December 29, 2010.  However, With my first four children all being exactly 10 days early (OK, Ezekiel missed the 10 day early mark by about six hours), I naturally assumed that my fifth baby would also come early.  I mean, why ruin a perfectly good pattern :)  Even my physician thought that he would come early -- he said I just had to remain pregnant until Dec. 1 to have a healthy baby.  Well, Thanksgiving came and we wrapped up the fall semester of school.  My plan was for us to take off the entire month of December, getting ready for Gabe's birth and adjusting to life with a newborn.  Well, once again, God's plan and my plan's were not the same.  Hunting season came, and I joked with my doctor about making sure I didn't go into labor on his day off so we wouldn't have to drag him away from the deer, and he responded with as long as baby was born before sunrise or after sunset :)

Well, hunting season passed with no contractions.  Then it drew closer and closer to Christmas.  My expected date of December 15 passed (hey, all they others were about 10 days early).  Then it was Christmas day.  All day I had minor insignificant contractions.  It must have been the power of suggestion and the idea of having a Christmas baby.  No labor.  By now I was feeling like I was almost two weeks overdue, even though it was my due date.  Well, my next appointment began the process of making sure baby was okay since I was overdue.  So, my next target date -- January 1, I mean why not have the first baby born in the new year.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to celebrate your birthday every year at midnight when you ring in the new year?  I think it would make for some great parties as a teenager.  Well, once again my plan was not God's plan.

December 28 came, and I was sick and tired of putting off everything that I had been delaying because I was waiting for the birth of my baby.  So I opened up my awesome new pasta maker, and made three pounds of pasta, I cleaned the house, got caught up on laundry (OK, some of this was still part of my daily maintenance of keeping house), and did several other things which I can't recall.  Several friends joked about my going into labor that night because of how much work I had done (Carrie, Dee, and some others).  I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what they were saying; however, before I went to bed I did feel some minor cramping (nothing new since I'd been having contractions and cramps since before Christmas and they hadn't been doing anything).  But, I did take the time that night to write up my anniversary post -- Just in Case :)

Well, at four thirty on my anniversary, I woke up with more serious cramping, but wasn't ready to share my anniversary with a birthday.  By five o'clock I was having three contractions within a five minute period.  So, I leaned over to J.A. and woke him up asking him what he thought of having a baby as an anniversary present. Since I didn't want to take kids with me to the hospital, I called my sitter (she lived 20 minutes away).  Then I asked J.A. to call the hospital while I took a shower. After my shower, contractions had slowed way down.  Dee arrived shortly after I got out, but I was no longer ready to go in to the hospital.  We sat around talking.  About 6:00, the hospital called, "You didn't have your baby at home did you?"  OK, I didn't know my calling in to the hospital would elicit such a response :)  I explained that my contractions slowed down, and the nurse let me know that they were ready for me whenever I came in.

Probably about fifteen minutes after the phone call we decided to head in, not because of my contractions, but because we wanted to leave before Ezekiel woke up -- I just didn't want to have to deal with a fit as we were leaving.  We drove the five minutes to the hospital, and found out that my doctor had been in since my first phone call.  Can you tell they were expecting me to have a very fast delivery (Ezekiel was three and a half hour labor total)? 

 Here is Daddy finally enjoying holding our precious new son.

 Mommy and Gabe snuggling.

Our hospital has a wonderful tradition of serving the new parents a steak dinner.  They typically serve the steak dinner on the second night of the hospital stay, but when the nurses found out it was our anniversary, they called the kitchen and ordered the steak dinner for us to enjoy that evening.  Dinner was a bit rushed since J.A. had to get to church to preach.  But, it was certainly a much nicer anniversary meal than what we would have had at home.

Now, for those of you wanting to know the baby's stats, here they are:

Gabriel Titus

December 29, 2010 at 9:39 a.m.

19 1/2 inches long, weight was 7 pounds 9 ounces.

Happy One Month Birthday Gabriel