Meet Carsten William

He's here. 

He arrived on Saturday at 7:57pm weighing 7 lbs 13 oz.  And he's a good baby.

His family is pretty happy to have him here finally!

Funny thing. We had a boy. After three girls, we had a boy. (No, that was not confirmed by fancy technology prior to his arrival.) But I'm not a bit surprised. Mommy instincts are funny. With Calla and Violet I had no feelings that we were having a boy. And with this little guy, there were no girl feelings. None.  I knew from the beginning that he was a he. It's also a family pattern that is holding true for the third generation in a row now. I'm glad I wasn't the one to break it!

And about his name.  All the girls have names that mean something to us.  All three of them are named after a grandma and a flower.  They also have a Grace, Joy, Faith element.  So when it came to a boy name, we just were stumped.  Actually, I was pretty stumped on both girl and boy options and Brent left it up to me. Yes, he had a say, but he has other things to do, like firewood and going to work and sitting with girls piled on him.

Carsten William.  Carsten means "Christian" in German.  That seemed appropriate and I liked the way it sounded.  William is my mom's dad's name.  And technically, she's named after her dad.  So, I guess all our kids are now technically named after a grandma.  I left out the flower thing.  That seemed appropriate, too.  Though a friend did suggest that we name him Sequoia Douglas.  I didn't completely dismiss something like that either.  But I'm happy with where we ended up. Though my pregnant sister-in-law told me after he was born that Carson was on their list of names.  Sorry, hon.  You know I wasn't stealing it!

Now that you know how it turned out, I'll tell you how it all went down.  Read on if you'd like. 

I think it was the neighbor's carrot cake that put me over the edge.  The few days before he was born, I was definitely feeling ready.  If you've been pregnant before, you know what I'm talking about.  You just get to a point where you are d.o.n.e. being pregnant.  I had woken up a few times the night before with some stronger twinges, but still nothing that was significant.  Brent was headed into town that day to work the booth at the fair for his job. 

Mom and dad were here so we hung around and the girls played outside and everything was a normal happy day.  Except mom was crabby and done being pregnant.  And every once in a while she'd have to walk or talk through a contraction.  It also was uncle Lance's birthday.  We have a pattern around here that we have our kids on or near another family member's birthday.  So it was a good day.

At about 1:00 we went into town to get the mail and drop some things off in town.  And then we came back home.  The neighbor invited us over for carrot cake.  She had had some company and they had left her a whole cake.  It would take her about a year to eat it, so she called and invited us over.  We all just walked.  And while I was there things started picking up a little.  When we got back, mom looked at me leaned up against the car and decided it was time to start thinking about heading to town. It was about 3:30. 

We got all the stuff in the car, said goodbye to the girls and grandpa and headed in.  Brent was just getting tired of standing around at the fair handing out fly swatters anyway, so he came and met us at the hospital.  Really, he wouldn't have missed it for the world, but the fact that he got paid all day to stand around and hand out fly swatters cracks me up.  It was about 5:00.

Grandma stuck around for about an hour to see how things were going.  And when she was satisfied that there would be a baby in the next few hours, she headed home to retrieve the girls and grandpa to come to town to meet a baby.  I was at almost 7cm dilated and we were moving right along.

Things continued to progress well and by the time grandma and grandpa had all the girls bathed, fed and in the car headed back to town, we had a baby.  Five hours of labor and we had a baby boy.  He's perfect.  His sisters are thrilled and his parents are getting used to the idea of having a boy pretty quickly.  Yes, he's a keeper.

We managed to bust out of the hospital early.  It's policy that babies stay 24 hours, but I really didn't want to end up spending another night since he had been born so late in the evening.  So we struck a deal with the pediatrician and got out about 4pm.  I don't think I would have been too antsy about it, but Grace started school today and I wanted to get home in time to have a decent evening with her and the other kids and than see her off to school in the morning.  Compromise is a good thing in cases such as these.  And the nurse was awesome.  She had us all ready to go at 4:01 because the pediatrician had told her we could go between four and five.  I will forever love her for that.

Home is a good place to be.  I'm feeling tired, but good.  Mom and dad are in town until Thursday when they will leave to go play in a golf tournament and get my grandma so they can all come back for a baptism on Sunday.  Grace got off to school this morning without incident and even got to go in with her daddy.  This next week will be a pretty big transition for this family.  But it will be a good time.