third one: a rock star arrives

rock stars have a reputation for taking their sweet time, and sloan was taking his. fatima and i decided that sloan is a rocker name and he did start knocking when we were playing rock band. anyways it was the 28th, the day i was going home and we needed him to come out! sarah had an appointment with the midwife at ten thirty and left kyle and i at church. kyle told me after sunday school was over that the midwife, margaret, had broken her water. later sarah told me that she was surprised. she thought she was getting another membrane swipe but the hook kept making an appearance. she came and got us and we went home to wait for the contractions to start stepping it up a notch.

i started packing my bags and did a load of laundry.

we went to ann's for lunch. i forgot about ann's for lunch and was super hungry and suggested that we stop at a drive-in on the way. sarah and kyle both loooked at me strangely. "on the way to lunch?" they asked emphasizing the lunch part. oh er... right, i said. later at ann's when we were whithering away to nothing waiting for lunch i told kyle that i had the right idea about the drive-in and he agreed. meanwhile, sarah to help her contractions along, kept taking turns about the room, as jane austen would say. mom walked with her and i took a turn at taking a turn as well. so as to better show off our figures, commented mr. darcy. and miss price took the opportunity to burden us with her secret that ruined all our hopes. we did different moves while we walked, like goose stepping and walking like the monkeys.

lunch was salad and cold prawns with that spicy tomato dip and some baked fish and ann's crab mousse and crackers.

after lunch sarah and i took a walk outside. we had to stop for some contractions and just when we were nearing ann's, we crossed paths with sister buchanan, who was trotting jauntily along. haha, no she was briskly walking. we stopped to talk for a while during which time sarah leaked some more water down her leg. which she hid admirably well. when we went back in, ann made her sit on a pad.
here she is waiting for sloan to get a move on, holding the digital picture frame they gave ann for christmas. note the picture of adriel stuffed in a chick suite for halloween and then note the ornament on the christmas tree behind the digiframe.

ehneway, ann and adriel and meghan left and dad was having a nap. we decided that since getting up and down helped the contractions along that mom, kyle, sarah and i would play upset the fruit basket. it was pretty funny. i was a kumquat and mom was a kiwi, sarah a strawberry and kyle was a rutabaga which is not a fruit, but what can you do. we did that for a while until sarah started getting harder contractions.

eventually around 5ish it was time to go to the hospital. i took a detour to go back and finish packing all my bags and load everything into the car so i could be ready to leave from the hospital. when i got to the hospital (wow what a nice maternity wing!) sarah was in the bath with a towel on her. we all sat around her. i had the toilet to sit on. mom sat on the dr. stool and kyle brought in a chair from the room, i think, or he stood. margaret sat on the edge of the tub and would pour hot water on sarah's belly during contractions and tell her she was doing good work. she also would once in a while check the heart beat. mom said it sounded like it was galloping which meant it was a boy. i didn't know that galloping tidbit, but i do now! eventually they got to the point where sarah was getting out of the tub and moved to the bed.

this is me at the birth event, sarah in the background doing her thing.

sarah's toes were all prepared for the birth. when the contractions got really hard, it was hard to hear her in so much pain. i shed a tear at that point and apparently mom did too. it was a special experience being there to see a mom sacrificing so much to bring her baby into the world. eventually sloan did enter the world too. i saw him come out and his torso was the only part of him that was out when he began to cry. suddenly everything was happy. mom said "it's a boy isn't it?" in her giddy kind of way as sloan was tossed up onto sarah's stomach. and it was. and he is.

and that's when i started clickity clicking. sloan came with the longest umbilical cord known to man. or maybe that was the 'membranes' that were sooper long. whatever.

he opened his big eyes right away.

here's his cute wrinkly feet. kyle was holding him.

sloan and daddy. note that kyle is wearing his christmas shirt that is the same as layne's. only appropriate for the birth day.

ann was having dinner at ev and esther's. she and esther and adriel and meghan all came over to see the babe.

getting measured. this is one moment when he was not screaming and flailing about. it's a bit blurry, i know.

gramma stratton's holding him now.

pinching his face with gramma clarke.

dad eventually got there while kyle and i were out getting subway. i knew fast food was going to come in to it sometime!

sloan may have a big meaty paw like his grampa some day. this was the last picture i took. ran out of memory AND batteries. then i took off like a shot for the ferry and just made it in time. and that is how i got to finally witness a birth first hand. thanks sarah and kyle for letting me come!