Arwen Pictures

Arwen Elora Waarvik says hello to the world on Monday!!!

Well, 39 weeks and 2 days of worry and concern finally came to a big (very big) happy ending on Monday night. Christina started regular 5-7 minute contractions on Saturday night, which, as luck would have it, was the big Texas Hold-em card game night...THANKFULLY Arwen held off for that night, allowing me to split the pot with Pops at 2 am. I figured the time wasn't right because as long as Christina is still able to smile, we're fine...it's when she starts yelling and breaking things that its time to go...We went nowhere on Sunday as the contractions lessened but basically stayed through the whole day, again, allowing me to watch the both the Green Bay Packers upset the Cowboys and the Indianapolis Colts come from behind on the New England Bennedict Arnolds...so far, Arwen has been a very, very considerate daughter :-) Luckily, I had Monday night off for Veteran's Day, because the contractions started becoming more regular and more painful, and we decided (meaning Christina told me) at 7 pm to drive down to the hospital. We left the kids with Christina's mother and made it to the hospital by 8 and, sure enough, she was dilated to a 6, which meant we didn't have to worry about being sent back on a "false alarm" like we did three times for Molly. At this point, Christina had to make a quick decision on whether or not to take the epidural or to do the natural child-birth she had wanted, and dithered on that so much that she effectively deciding that she would go natural since, by that time, it was too late for an epidural (sorry for the run-on, but it makes sense, I swear, re-read it). Anyway, by about 10:15 the contractions were starting to become much more painful, and she was dilated to an 8, but her water hadn't broken yet, so the doctor came in and broke her water. Within about a minute, she was telling the nurse she felt a lot of pressure and it was time to go! Thankfully, these Giles County nurses and doctor actually listened to the patient, unlike Vanderbilt that tried to tell Christina "No, no, you can't possibly be having the baby, you were just an 8 a minute ago," as if she couldn't really tell when a kid was coming out her...well, skipping over the gory details (which I actually watched this time), the baby came out faster than even our last one. As far as actual pushing, I swear it was under 2 minutes (2 rather painful minutes, from what I could tell), and Arwen Elora Waarvik was born. Our previous kids had been 8lbs 3oz, 7lbs 13oz, 7lbs 11 oz...Arwen weighed in at 9lbs 12oz and 21 inches long, definitely a keeper!!! Just the type of kid you want to have a natural birth with (YOUCH!). Arwen is home and, besides being an INCREDIBLY gassy baby and keeping us up all through the night (sigh, I remember how this goes now), she's PERFECT! :-) Can't wait for everyone to meet her!

1 week to go

That's right! I am 39 weeks pregnant today... just one week left! Who knew that we would make it this far after all we have been through with this pregnancy? I am so happy she is going to be born a full term healthy baby but I am also ready to get rid of this pregnant belly! It's not easy to carry all this extra weight around hahaha but 7 more days isn't so bad right?! I will post pictures and updates as soon as Miss Arwen is born and we are home... or I will have Joe do it while we are in the hospital.
Have a happy day!