Life is Good: July 2012

As the week began we found ourselves settling into a natural rhythm of living. With most of the tasks completed - settling into the house and preparing for baby - we got down to the day to day stuff.

There was one last task scheduled to be done this week, but it didn't involve any of our own labor. We had hired a company to install a gas line to the house so we could then have an on-demand water heating system installed. It took the installers two days to complete this task. They had to cut up the concrete going up the entire driveway from the road to the house in order to install the gas line. At the end of the job we had a nice long open trench that was to be refilled with concrete at a later date. It was shallow in some spots and deeper in others so it became an artful and creative endeavor to get in and out of the drive. The next step was to get the pipe fitter and electrician here to hook up the gas lines to the house and put in the on-demand heating system. This was to happen the following week. This was all a minor distraction for us, our minds were really more filled with anticipation of baby's arrival.

This surely had to be the week for baby to arrive. Heather had a couple of midwife appointments to go to and it soon became apparent that if she didn't go into labor by weeks end she would be induced. Noreen, Heather's midwife, had told Heather all along that if she gets near two weeks over her due date that induction would happen. Heather was well over her due date so she resorted to tactics known to help bring on labor...climbing up and down the stairs, going for walks, going four-wheeling...(joke)... among other things, but without the wanted result. On Thursday 7 June Noreen performed the first of three techniques used to start labor. Friday early morning Heather started feeling contractions and by time Niels and I got up in the morning she was timing them and using the TENS machine (used to ease labor pains). Of course we were excited, but we were also anxious for Heather to get through this part...she worked really hard for many hours to bring baby into this world .... finally Sebastian was delivered by c-section on Saturday 9 June 2012 around 10:20 am weighing almost 9 pounds!

Glimpses ...