Our first Nephew

On Friday, December 11, we welcomed the newest member of our family to this world! Lucas was born at 3:53am after 28 hours of labor and 5 hours of pushing. I'm writing this to remember a few of the details about his birth. On Thursday morning, I got a text message from Brenna at around 5:00am. She told me I should probably drive to work that day and that she had been having contractions since midnight. I drove to work and was more excited than I've ever been  before. Every single muscle was tensed in anticipation. I couldn't stop smiling and I was just bouncing off the walls!! Who needs coffee when you've got a nephew on the way!?!

Around noon on Thursday, Brenna and Ethan headed to the hospital (12 hours of contractions so far). As soon as I got word of that, I was GONE from work! I dashed out of the office and headed to the hospital. On the drive over, I tried to take note of a few details of the day. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day although it was super cold! I have a few "mental snapshots" of the beautiful drive over I-90. I got to the hospital around 12:30 and just sat around with them. Poor Bren was in lots of pain. But she was a champ. She was very calm and true to Brenna's nature, she was still as sweet as an angel. Ethan was great. too. He is so good at focusing on Bren and making it all about her. He answered most of the questions for the nurses...he just did everything he could to make things comfortable and easy for her.

Meanwhile, the family started to converge! Mom left home in North Bend around 9am. The twins hurried to finish their finals and sped up from Corvallis. Dad had to finish some last minute stuff at work so he wasn't able to leave until around 3am on Friday morning (he 'enjoys' driving at such strange hours). Chaunc ran to the grocery store to prepare for the onslaught of family members and then she also headed to the hospital. Well, the huge rush wasn't needed. Lucas decided not to come out for quite some time. We all left the hospital around 10:30 pm on Thursday night. Joel ended up sneaking back to the hospital and stayed until 12:30. After 5 hours of pushing, Lucas was finally born at 3:53 am on Friday, December 11! The new mommy and daddy wanted a little bit of sleep, so we left them alone until around lunch time on Friday.

Let me tell you. Brenna is my hero. I think she got all the patience genes of the family. I don't know how she managed to deal with 8+ family members crowding into her hospital room while she operated on almost no sleep for 48+ hours! But, I'm thankful she did! Baby Lucas is perfect. So far, he sleeps most of the time. But I still can't get enough of him! I just look at the little bundle in my arms and think of how much this little bundle holds! He has so much love surrounding him. So pure. So much potential. So much....of something. I don't quite know the word to describe it. There's just so much there in that little, tiny body! As Brenna put it, he's a fresh little soul...straight from Heaven.

Now the hard work starts for them. Ethan started his new job TODAY (good timing?). My mom is there with Brenna to make sure she gets some sleep. I can't wait to see what the future holds for the little guy! I'm already imagining hearing him giggle and seeing him smile! Joel is excited to play soccer and basketball with him! This is just the first cousin. I'm sure there will be many more to come!!

Lovely morning

I just wanted to write quickly about two lovely things this morning. First, our dearest Emma. She has an adorable new habit. You see, I wake up before Joel each morning. I eat my cereal while Emma sits in my lap and eats her breakfast. Well, lately, she's been eating her breakfast and then racing up the stairs. She begs Joel to lift her into bed and then she gets 20 minutes of snuggle time with him. The cute thing about this is that Emma is never calm when she gets a chance to be on the bed...except for these morning snuggles with dad. Normally, she attacks us with kisses and tries to dig (?) in the covers and threatens to leap off the bed (which I fear will break her back!). I'm not a fan of that behavior....who knows why she decides to be calm when dad lets her on the bed!

The other lovely thing about this morning is the beautiful drive into Seattle. I slept in too much this morning, so I missed the first AND the second train...so I had to drive. It turned out to be such a pretty drive! The sky was crisp and clear and as the sun started to rise, the Olympic mountains were a pretty pink color. The Seattle skyline always glows a pretty gold/orange/pink color on mornings like this. It may sound crazy, but sometimes I love my morning commute. Without my commute, I wouldn't have nearly as much "self" time! I love having an hour and a half each morning to just think, listen to music and enjoy the beautiful morning. When I'm on the train, I love having the chance to read, do homework and think. Of course, I would much rather the ability to teleport home each day, but until that's invented (or until I get a job closer to home...whichever comes first), the daily commute really isn't that bad.