BIRTH-DAY

With grateful hearts and much thanksgiving, we announce the arrival of Ethan Francis.

Number eight (earthside) arrived August 20th at 5:31 in the morning.

Overall, this was an easy pregnancy, minimal sickness and I felt good throughout.  

That is up until the last couple weeks.  Given the arrival times of the last couple of babies, I fully expected to have this guy a bit earlier than he arrived, however, all is God's perfect timing.

I had been having contractions since the last week of July--but nothing ever progressed and time went on..and on..and on..

I will say I got a bit grumpy and anxious that no baby was coming.  It literally felt like he was just going to stay inside for good.  Irrational, I know.  We passed the due date and still nothing.  I ended up having to schedule some tests if he did not arrive by a certain time.

Well, again--in God's perfect time, I woke up sometime after 2am on Thursday, August 20th--an unseasonably cold August morning (it was in the 50's at that hour!)-- wondering if I was dreaming.  I used the bathroom and went back to bed..or tried to at least.  It was not a dream.  The pain was real. BUT--I had been having contractions on and off for a couple weeks, so nothing to get excited about.  I went to sit in the living room instead of laying back down.  A couple trips to the bathroom and more contractions, and I decided to wake Mike up "just in case" around 3am.  It has to be noted that he had very much been looking forward to a special workout at the gym that morning, so his plans were "ruined" in that regard.  Contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart and I called the midwives around 3:30am.  Mike got to setting up all the birth paraphenalia --

as I paced the kitchen.  The midwives arrived around 4:15/4:30am, I'm not 100% sure because I was not watching the clock.  Contractions were about the same--not picking up or getting closer.  I had an exam to hopefully speed things up--but there was nothing to speed up--I was already at 8-9cm and the bag of waters was bulging.  (I've only had one baby where the waters broke and no baby immediately followed)

So I walked around a bit more and got in the tub maybe 5:15am--a few short minutes later I had to push and out popped mister Ethan!!  Two pushes and there he was!  

A lot smaller than I had expected at 8lbs 9 oz..(not that I'm complaining!!).

The kids started peeking around the corner shortly afterwards, while I was still in the tub.  The girls first had awoken when he cried and then Jared and Grant.  The boys downstairs took awhile to come up and eventually we woke up Levi so we could get a pictures with everyone together.

We were a little worried about how this guy would react, but honestly other than nap time being off for him lately, he has been really good and loves to hold Ethan. 

About an hour after birth, we rounded up the troops.  The midwives left a bit after 7am and just like that we are a family of 10!  Praise God from Whom ALL blessings flow!

Ethan means "Strong" and Francis is the masculine spelling as he is named after my maternal grandmother.

He is sleeping pretty well and eating like a champ and just looking as cute as can be all the while.

We are so very thankful for this new blessing!!