HE'S HERE!!!!

I am no longer the sole man of the house. Luke Leavitt Andrus was born Sunday morning at 8:12 am. Thanks to my expert coaching, Brenda was able to have the baby within an hour and a half of arriving at the hospital. Actually, my technique simply involves staying as quiet as possible at the side of the bed, trying to look as sympathetic as possible, and not coming within reach of Brenda. I've found that my health is generally much better when I do these things.

Anyways, everything went really well. Brenda didn't even have an epidural (her third in a row). Of course, I spent much of that time huddled in the corner, quietly crying (remember I'm trying to look as pitiful as possible).

By the way, I learned an important lesson in the birthing process. At no time should you try and sit down or look pale at all. I tried to sit down 10 MINUTES after the baby was born (after standing for the last two hours), something I thought was perfectly natural since I tend to be a little lazy. However, the instant I sat down the good doctor and three nurses were all shouting at me to lay down on my back and elevate my feet. I guess they've had a lot of dad's pass out. However, I was just fine. Of course, Brenda was now laughing at me while I tried to politely explain to the over zealous nurses that I was FINE!!! Although in all of this I also learned that you can get just about anything you want from the nurses in the way of juice and snacks.

Being the good and caring husband that I am, I volunteered to spend the night at the hospital with Brenda and the baby. All the while knowing that a night at the hospital in a maternity ward is worse than any night I've ever had. The people in the room next to ours were loud, the bathroom has things in it that no guy should ever have to see, let alone think about, and the "kind" nurses check on you every hour as soon as you somehow manage to fall asleep. I spent the first two hours trying to find a comfortable spot on the recliner (believe me, it's not possible). The nurse came in at midnight and informed me that they could bring in a bed (I somehow managed to not tell her off for not telling me that two hours before). The next seven hours on the piece of crap mattress (I swear I could feel every spring in it) are seven hours that I would like to forget. I somehow made it through the night, and have scheduled several months of weekly chiropractic checkups to try and undo the damage that was done to my back(luckily we've also reached our out of pocket maximum on our insurance).

I went and got the kids at about 10:30, and we then spend the next several hours trying to get ready for Brenda to come at about 4 p.m. We were all glad to have her home today. The kids have been a little extra emotional, but nothing a lot of sugar couldn't fix. All in all it all went really well and we are extremely grateful to have another child in our home who is healthy. We've been really blessed to have so many great family members who are so willing to help. The doctor and nurses were great as well.