Boxing Day

Here are the kids with their cousins and their Aunt Marni. Aunt Liz just handed out "candy kebabs" and the kids are pretty excited. Thanks Liz!

Christmas Day

The boys woke up before Kira, Hanna, Daddy and I, so they waited patiently until 8 am when we let them wake up Kira too. Patrick was the most excited kid in the house!

Kira woke up in no mood for stockings.

Surrounded by opened stockings and gifts, here is our tree on Christmas morning.

Campbell couldn't wait until it was late enough to call Grandma and get her to come over and watch Jack Sparrow with him.

Happy First Christmas Baby Hanna! And look at the beautiful quilt that my friend Kathy made for her. It is so soft and warm.

Hanna and Grandpa enjoy some quiet time amidst the chaos.

Kira fell asleep before the Christmas dinner was served.

Campbell looks on as Grandpa tries to set the watch that Aunt Gayle gave him.

Cameras, glitter and lights! Puck loves Christmas.

Christmas Eve

The girls are ready to go to Grandma's house.

Patrick is admiring the heap of presents under Grandma's tree.

Here are Campbell and Kira with Cousin P waiting for presents to be opened.

Trying to pose 8 children in a group shot - SCARY!

This is as good as it gets. Hopefully Mike got a better one that he can e-mail me.

Hanna is sick of the constant media attention.


Kira loves her mermaid doll.

Damon opening his gifts.

Cousin P snuggling with Hanna.

Campbell and Cousin T jump in for a group shot.

After getting their pjs on, Hanna gets some hugs from Cousin M too.

Smiles

Just catching up with a Hanna-smile.

Mommy's babies

Campbell and his clone-sister.

Sleepyhead

Would you consider it a breed trait then?

I don't normally read comics, let alone Marmaduke, but the bottom right hand corner of this cartoon caught my eye.
Marmaduke
"Dog Gone Funny Joliet Ill. From the 2001 Mailbag. Mindy, Andy and Arin Bazzarone told Marmaduke that Gypsy, their German Shorthaired Pointer, goes to the bathroom tub and turns on the cold water faucet when she's thirsty. She hasn't figured out how to turn the faucet off."



That sounds strangely similar to another German Shorthaired Pointer I know.

The whole gang

Hanna meets her family

Hanna's arrival in photos

Here I am while waiting for the nurse to start my IV.

Seconds after birth.

Getting cleaned up a bit.

The cast and crew.

Presenting Hanna Katherine

I was booked for an induction on Wednesday. The hospital called me at 6:45 and asked me to be there for 9:30 to start the indution. HA! We got there and as we were sitting there waiting for the nurse to take us to our room, 3 labouring women walked in and another woman at 36 weeks pregnant was sent over from the ER because she was vomitting blood and screaming in pain. And then it got worse. There was a twin delivery, another woman had gone a day with ruptured membranes, and so on. So at 11:30 they decided that they needed to focus on these people and they sent us home. They said that if we hadn't heard anything, to call at 4 and see if things had quieted down enough. DH and I are pretty understanding people though.

At 4 they were still busy, they said to call at 7:30. At 7:30 they were still busy and said they would call us at 8:30. They did and asked us to come in at 10 pm for an induction!

They were ready to start the induction at 10:30. The resident doctor tried to break my water, but said that she was afraid of hurting the baby because the membranes were pulled so tightly across her head. My OB stepped in and tried to create a pocket, but had no luck. I was extremely uncomfortable at this point and blurted out that "I feel like a hand puppet." The doctor said that she was going to be remembering that comment for a while. She said my membranes were incredibly tough. I was still only 2 cms. So she had the nurse try to start an IV, but my veins kept rolling away. I had blown veins all over my hand. At this point I'm ready to cry because nothing has gone right. They called in another nurse from the IV team to do it.

Because they needed to monitor me for the first 1/2 hour of syntocin, I lay down and went to sleep. Matt and I both slept on and off until about 3:30. The nurse came to check me periodically throughout and turn up the syntocin. At 3:30 am I started feeling my contractions and woke up. They were 1 minute long, every 2 minutes. I breathed through them for 1/2 hour before asking the nurse if I could be checked for dilation. The resident said I was 4 cm and baby's head was still sideways, which was discouraging to me. I was doing my meditative breathing but because I was having back labour I was not able to relax my bottom. So at that point, I made the decision to have the epidural. The anaesthetist arrived at 4:30 and even the epidural didn't go smoothly! It was the most painful epidural of the 4 I've had, and it was not a "walking epidural", and by 5 am, I was totally numb and shivering. DH and I went back to sleep, and at about 5:45 I mentioned to the nurse that I was feeling tremendous pressure in my bottom. The resident checked me and couldn't find my cervix, I was complete, but so numb that I had no urge to push. I waited another 10 minutes to start pushing, but even then I still didn't "feel it". Finally I felt the urge and 2 pushes later, her head was out. My OB had a bit of a problem with her shoulders and was trying to avoid a tear, so I wasn't able to push. Finally Hanna Katherine wiggled her way out at 6:06 am, and the doctor's efforts were in vain and I needed 1 stitch. So Hanna Katherine was born on November 9th, at 6:06 am. She was 21 inches long and she weighed 8 lbs 9 oz, but she's dainty, I don't know where she hides it!

Once we got to the maternity ward, the nurses asked us if we would pose for photos with the staff for a brochure. They figured that we were experienced enough that throwing a photo shoot into our birth experience wouldn't phase us. LOL Anyway, we got this sweet photo from the hospital's promotional photographer.


The kids came to visit and they were all thrilled with their new sister, even Kira. She is enjoying being home with her new sister, her daddy and her mommy. I can't wait for the boys to get home so we can have some family time. This is the first baby born since we got Puck and he was terrified of Hanna. It was kind of funny to watch our 70 lb dog jump back 6 feet in fear when our 8 lb baby unclenched her fist. It took him a few minutes of sniffing her, and now he's accepted her as one of the family.

Family resemblance

Here we are walking down the road for a visit to Valerie and Dan's place.








Kira is racing with her brothers down the hill.






Some of the kids enjoying wild raspberries along the way.





Damon is watching the pointers play. Puck was so happy to find a dog who wanted to play like he does. On the way home he didn't even notice the pheasant that walked right across the road in front of us!

Go fly a kite

Induction

So I saw my OB on Wednesday. First I grabbed a sure-fire labour starter, Locke Street Bagel's famous BLT. The OB did an internal exam and started laughing. It wasn't the fact that I was still only 1cm dilated that was so funny, no it was the fact that my cervix was still so thick and firm that was giving her the giggles. HA HA HA. Apparently the sandwich hadn't helped much, but at least it was yummy.

She booked me for a biophysical profile for Monday morning. If there is a problem with that, I will be induced immediately, otherwise, I will be induced on Wednesday November 8th, which is 10 days after my due date.

So yesterday, Kira and I spent the morning washing the bathroom floor grout with toothbrushes. But still nothing. That's okay says Damon.

The other night, he was getting ready for bed and wanted to just wear his boxers. I said, "well you'll feel pretty goofy when I go into labour in the middle of the night and we are dropping you off at Reiko's house in your boxers."

He said, "When you had Kira, you drove us to Grandma's house and you weren't all crazy in labour or anything." LOL

I said, "That's because I was being induced for Kira, I had an appointment for them to start labour for me, I wasn't in labour."

He said, "Well do that again then, I don't feel like rushing around and having to leave the house in the middle of the night."

Very scary

Kira as Cinderella, decided that she'd rather watch "Max & Ruby" than go trick or treating. "No, stay home!"

Count Campbellula has a "bite" to eat before he goes out with his friends.

Damon is ready to go!

Patrick was a gaucho, looking oh, so south american with his blonde hair and pasty white skin.