Introducing...

Let me tell you about my Valentine's Day. It was 8 days until my due date and I woke up around 5 am. A few minutes later I had a contraction. I started timing them. About 20 minutes later I had another. Maybe I'll have my baby today, I thought. I took a shower and gathered some last minute items for my hospital bag. I told Dave when he woke up and joked with him that I had told the baby he wasn't allowed to come on my birthday, but hadn't said anythng about not coming on Valentine's Day. The kids woke up around 7 am and we had them dress quickly and gave them granola bars for breakfast. The contracions were almost 5 minutes apart and I thought we'd be leaving for the hospital at any minute. Here is me ready to leave. (I hate this picture, I may burn that shirt.)

Then the contractions started getting further apart. By 9 am, they were 20 minutes apart again. This isn't how it is supposed to work. I spent the rest of the day having contractions that ranged from 15 to 30 minutes apart. The longest interval being 45 minutes. It drove me nuts! I ent outside and shoveled our driveway hoping to induce labor, contractions got as close as 12 min. then went longer. We went to Costco, we had shopping to do and I thought maybe taking a walk would help. I just got funny and annoyed looks from people. We went home and had dinner. I'd been eating very light all day because if I'm going to the hospital at any moment, I don't want to have much in my stomach or intestines.

At 7 pm, Dave was bathing boys and I called my mom to see if my kids could spend the night at her house, just in case. I'd had her on call all day. We packed bags for the kids with Sunday clothes, just in case, play clothes and a favorite stuffed animal. They were wearing pjs already. Went to my parent's house and got the kids settled into bed. I was still having contractions every 15-30 minutes. Dave took a nap on the couch for three hours while I visited. I wish that I could have taken a nap that day. At 11 pm my parents went to bed. My contractions were coming closer after getting to my parents house and now they were about 9 minutes apart. I woke Dave and we went to the hospital. I half expected them to turn us away and say it wasn't time yet. We got to the hospital at 11:10 pm. They cheked me and I was dilated 5-6 cm. I told them I wanted an epidural. My first two kids I had naturally. Alex, I had an epidural and wanted another to make the pain to go away. They said I could, that I wasn't too far along yet. Fifteen minutes later, I was dilated to a 6+ and the anesthesiologist was giving me an epidural. I was in so much pain and he said it would take effect in 10-15 minutes. Not soon enough! They tried to roll me on my back to check me again and I didn't want to. They forced me on my back and the baby wouldn't wait any more. It was after midnight, no longer Valentine's Day. My baby boy was born at 12:08 am, February 15th, before the epidural kiked in. I've now had thee natural births, one not by choice.

I think he wanted to come Saturday, but when he realized what day it was, he decided, not yet. Unfortunately he had already started the labor and couldn't stop it, but he could stall it, even though mom tried to get it to progress. My baby weighed 8 lbs. and was 19 inches long. He had lots of brown hair, baby gray eyes. Perfect in every way, but he looks like a beardless dwarf from "the Hobbit." He is our runt of the litter. The smallest of all my babies. It's good, though, I didn't tear or have to have an episitomy this time, so recovery should take much less time.

It wasn't until he was a day and a half old that I finally conceeded to Dave on his name. We had a list, but none of them seemed to fit. The name we chose fit the best.

Welcome to our family,

Michael Dixon Larkin.