Introducing...Sean Patrick Terry

Well, I got my wish. The contractions definitely got stronger. I waited and waited to make sure that it wasn't just false labor that was going to go away again. Finally, around 1:00am, I told Nate that we needed to go to the hospital. By the time he got up, got dressed, called Tanya and carried the girls one at a time down to her house, then drove to the hospital, it was 2:00am. Sean was born just a little over an hour later. I'd planned to have an epidural, but the anaesthesiologist was busy with someone else when we got there, and there wasn't really time to call the backup guy in. So I got to experience labor au natural. It was not fun. I'll just leave it at that. I can't understand why some women actually want to do it that way. It boggles the mind. It was my fault for delaying so long, but in my defense, I'd only really experienced labor like that once before (with Bethany, Meagan was induced), and when I thought it was bad enough to go to the hospital, they said it wasn't bad enough and sent me away to walk for an hour. So that on top of the false labor from the day before made me wait almost too long. At least the time in the hospital was short, even if it didn't feel like it at the time.


So anyway, Sean was born at 3:04am, weighing in at 7lbs 15.6ozs, and 20 1/2 inches long. He's my biggest baby. He's been a little angel, too. In the hospital, he mostly slept. In fact he went for several long stretches without eating, like seven hours at a time. The staff kept trying to get me to wake him up to eat, but he just wanted to sleep. Bethany did the same thing. I tried everything they suggested to get her to wake up to eat, even undressing her and putting a cold washcloth on her, but nothing really worked. They freaked me out, worrying that she was going to starve or something in the first couple of days, but really, she was just tired. Once I got her home, she was just fine. Sean, too. The night we came home, he suddenly woke up, and has been eating fine ever since.


Nate brought Bethany and Meagan to visit us later on Wednesday. Bethany brought her backpack from school to show me what she'd done that day. She was really cute about Sean. She loved holding him and every time he made a squeak, she got excited that he was talking to her. Meagan just went around saying, "The baby is Sean. He's my brother." She liked to hold him, too, but not as much as Bethany did. Bethany also got a big kick out of taking pictures. I got the camera out to get some of them all together, and then she insisted on having her turn. Some of the ones she took were pretty good (not including the ceiling and all the nasty pictures of me that I deleted). Here are a few of them.









The bad part about the visit was when it was time to leave. Bethany really, really didn't want me to stay there. She said, "You can't stay here forever. You need to come home." Not much I said helped, even though I promised her I'd be home on Friday. I eventually ended up coming home on Thursday evening instead of Friday. When I was offered the chance to go home, I took it mostly to make Bethany happy. I felt pretty good, anyway, and it was a bit boring sitting around in the hospital. And the sooner I could get out of those lovely hospital gowns, the better, too. Of course, as soon as I got home, I was little sorry I'd come back so early. The house didn't exactly look like a tornado had hit, but it was close. At least the kitchen was fairly clean. I'm not sure if Nate even fed them much at home the entire time I was gone, or not. I know he took them out to eat at least twice, and Thursday morning he said Meagan got up and made her own breakfast. She got a piece of bread, broke it in little pieces in a bowl, and was eating it with a spoon. So, there weren't many dirty dishes.

It got even worse later. By the time I got things unpacked, and Sean settled and fed, it was almost 1:00am. I was looking forward to a nice shower, and then some sleep. Just as I was getting ready to get in the shower, I heard Bethany crying. I went in her room to find that she was rolling in puke. Of course, it had dripped down from her bed onto Meagan's, so cleaning everything up was a big production. None of us got back to bed anytime soon. Welcome home, Mom.

Bethany was still sick the next day. She threw up a couple more times, so she spent most of the day sitting around on the couch watching TV. Later in the day, I had gotten a new thermometer, and I wanted to see how well it worked, so I tried it out on the kids. I was shocked to find that Meagan had a fever. She wasn't acting sick at all. At most, she had a little runny nose. So, now I had two sick kids, sick with different things, even, and a newborn in the house, and I had to somehow take care of the sickies without getting the newborn sick. It was very stressful.

Now it's Saturday, and we're settled a little more. Sean was really gassy last night, and didn't sleep well, so I ended up on the couch holding him for a good chunk of the night. I did get some sleep in there, so it wasn't so bad. He's still been a bit fussy today, too, but at least he's sleeping a little better. The main problem, I think, is that he doesn't burp very well after he eats. We'll figure it all out eventually. Bethany is better, Meagan is not. I guess this means that Meagan is staying home from church with me tomorrow, unless she miraculously improves tonight. But, we're all slowly getting into a new routine, and adjusting to life with Sean around.