Update From the Home Front

Hey everyone - I do live! Thank you for all of the prayers and encouragement this week. It is all needed! We are enjoying our time at home now as a little family of five. Fiona is lovely and sweet. She is feeding well and getting me up for snacks every couple of hours. Trinity and Connor have warmed up to the new lifestyle very well and enjoy laughing at all of their little sister's funny faces. It is great having Allan home; I already dread his return to work after next week. As for me? Emotionally I am doing well, just enjoying life as it comes minute by minute. Someday Allan and I will need to process the frightening birth experience we endured, but that needs to be held off for now. The physical recovery process feels s-l-o-w (has it really only been four days??). The internal bruising will take a bit to heal up; we are thankful, though, that we will easily recover from all the trauma!

Need to keep this short. Trinity & Connor are running in and out - catching spiders and bringing them to show me. Allan's getting dinner on the table, and Fiona is beginning to stir on the couch next to me. Stay tuned!...

Introducing Fiona Grace White

At 6:01 Tuesday evening, Kristi gave birth to Fiona Grace White. She was 21.4” long, and weighed 11 pounds 4 ounces!

Fiona broke the record for Providence Hospital for the last couple of years. The nurses couldn’t belive she was delivered normally. Wow.

Delivery was very hard, and I got pretty worried for a minute. But Kristi did it, and is recovering well. Fiona is just wonderful. She eats, she sleeps, she fills her diaper, she makes cute noises. Oh, and she's beautiful, if still a bit puffy. I'm looking forward to getting to know her.

You can see some pictures over here at Flickr. We've shot some video as well, but who knows when that will get put together. Probably for high school graduation. =)

- Allan

No News is...Oh, Never Mind

Thank you for all of the well-wishing email, phone calls, and blog comments lately. Tuesday has come and gone, so my dear doctor is back. When I told him how relieved I was, he shared that he had told the nurses to call him if I went into labor while he was on vacation. He was going to make every effort to come in for it, even then (you see why I love this man?).

Now we are at a place of decision. This baby is getting big (they're guessing it is well into the eight pound range or bigger at this point), and I'm still only 1 cm dilated. I can be induced, which I was trying to avoid because of the long labor that results, or I can wait, and risk a few complications that come with larger babies, like a long labor, tearing, and the baby getting stuck (all which happened with Trinity when she was induced past her due date). Hmmm...any other options available?

I know I should put on my happy face, but I'm a little discouraged about this tonight (morning? - sleep isn't coming). Maybe disappointed is a better word. You know, sometimes things in life don't work out how we'd want. I can deal with it, and I know the important result is the same - a little bundle of joy and perfection placed in my arms at the end of a battle. But right now I want to be in my disappointment.

I'm sure things will look brighter in the daylight.

Site of the Day

Got an unidentified creepy-crawlie in your yard, or ack!, in your bathroom? Check out What's That Bug? to find the answer.

Who He Is

There is a passage of Scripture that has been resonating in my thoughts and spirit for many months. I think it has found a place in my attention because, through hearing God's own words, it reveals His character and my place in this world.

If you ever find yourself losing perspective, thinking it is all about you, read the last few chapters of Job.

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell, if you know so much. Do you know how its dimensions were determined and who did the surveying?

Who defined the boundaries of the sea as it burst from the womb, and as I clothed it with clouds and thick darkness? For I locked it behind barred gates, limiting its shores. I said, 'Thus far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop!"

Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east?

Where does the light come from, and where does the darkness go? Can you take it to its home? Do you know how to get there? But of course you know all this! For you were born before it was all created, and you are so very experienced!

Can you hold back the movements of the stars? Are you able to restrain the Pleiades or Orion? Do you know the laws of the universe and how God rules the earth?

Can you stalk prey for a lioness and satisfy the young lions' appetites?

Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Have you watched as the wild deer are born? Do you know how many months they carry their young?


Have you given the horse its strength or clothed its neck with a flowing mane? Fiercely it paws the ground and rushes forward into battle when the trumpet blows. It senses the battle even at a distance.

Are you as strong as God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? All right then, put on your robes of state, your majesty and splendor. Then even I would praise you, for your own strength would save you.

[taken from Job chapters 38 - 42, NLT]

Tick, Tick, Tick...

I have been ready to give birth for, well...months, actually. I really enjoy pregnancy in some ways - the honor of being involved so intimately with an incredible, mind-blowing miracle, watching my body change in ways that don't seem possible, bonding with the little one inside, and even the attention and pampering from family and strangers alike. This has been a harder pregnancy for me, though, both mentally and physically. I feel older.

So here's my dilemma. After months of being "ready" to give birth (and saying over and over I just have to make it through the first two weeks of PSP!!), I need labor to hold off until at least Tuesday. My doctor is out of town. I love my doctor, Dr. Nakamura. I rely on him to help me make the best choices for myself and my babies. I trust him with our lives. He is a great, incredibly wise and amazingly intelligent, Christian man. He has been the hands who have been the first to touch my other two children, and he is the only doctor I have ever had.

Logic tells me that it will all work out fine. Allan keeps reminding me that Dr. Nak trusts the other doctors in his practice, so we can, too. Those other doctors delivered three of my nephews and several cousins. But the nightmares have been ugly. The ones where I die during delivery because he was not there. But, in case you weren't aware, logic goes pretty far out the window when one is over 38 weeks pregnant!

So for the next few days I will hold off on long walks, massaging pressure points, eating spicy foods and all of those other triggers for labor. I think I'll just lie really still and watch the clock until Tuesday.

Random Question of the Day

Does anyone know why we (and other people groups) do not call foreign cities and countries by their proper names? For example, why do we say Florence, Italy rather than Firenze, Italia? Or why is Deutschland called Germany? [I know they used to be Germania]. Russia instead of Rossiya? It's just one of those things that has bugged for years, so I thought I'd ask.

Baby Name Ideas

After the "Are you having twins??" and "Is it a boy or a girl?" questions that I field dozen of times per day, the next question is usually about what names we have chosen. I'd love to have an answer for people. We just can't seem to have a discussion about it - other than my occasional "What do you think about [fill in the blank]?" and Allan's initial response and Trinity and Connor giving their definite opinions. Allan has always liked the idea of waiting to choose the name once we meet the baby, so I'm thinking that may be playing a part in our lack of deliberation. Here's a few ideas we have been throwing around - we're still open to others, though. Feel free to comment on what you like and don't like; I'm sure we'll go our own way no matter what people say!

Boy:
Rowan
Aden
Kellen
Caden
(I think we have an "n" ending thing going on)

Boy Middle Name:
Cedar
Stone
others??

Girl:
Fiona
Arwen
Willow (too many Ws?)
Lillian

Girl Middle Name:
Jade (I think this is the only name we are pretty set on)