Welcome, Sweet Baby!

Our beautiful Andelynn Rei Forbes is here at last!  Warning: the next few paragraphs contain details of the birth, so if you're squeamish, scroll down to BABY PICTURES.

I had woken up Saturday morning around 4am with some noteworthy contractions, but they were easily slept through.  For me anyway.  Drew couldn't get his brain to calm down that night, so he didn't go to sleep till 5am.  I'm afraid I did not do a very good job being sympathetic about his insomnia--labor doesn't really predispose one to selflessness, and I knew I was going to need his support for whatever the day had in store.  But, I also knew that when our baby arrived I wanted to feel like a team, so when the kids were released from their room by their sheep alarm clock, I made breakfast burritos with hash browns, because Drew likes hash browns.  "Act yourself into a new way of feeling!"  We spent the rest of the morning looking at the album of funny pictures my sisters made for me (to promote laughter and relaxation!), pretending to go about our normal business, and trying to find a babysitter.  

Too bad this one wasn't around.  She looks like a good babysitter.

Most of our branch was in Fukuoka on a temple trip and a few of my best friends were out of town, so I had to go quite a ways down my list of people who said they would help to find someone available.  By about 10:30 the contractions that had been easily managed with squatting and deep breathing were getting hard to talk through (and Drew's jokes suddenly didn't seem so funny anymore . . . a good measure of the seriousness of the situation, cause Drew's dad jokes are hilarious), so we grabbed our stuff, dropped off the kids upstairs to play with the Halls, and headed to the hospital.  Since it was Saturday and Golden Week, the hospital was nearly deserted.  We went in through the side door at about 11:15 and then wandered around for awhile (pausing for contractions) until we found some nurses.  I told them in Japanese that I had come to be admitted and that I was in labor.  They laughed, so I'm not sure if I said it incorrectly or if they just thought it was funny that I felt like I had to say why I was there, but they told us to wait in the hall for the nurse.  At this point my contractions were taking a lot of concentration to relax through, and while we were sitting there in the hall I felt something slip and was suddenly uneasy, thinking that we might not make it into a room at all before the baby came.  I ducked into the bathroom for a second, just to make sure we were ok; Drew was very worried I was going to have the baby in the little Japanese toilet.  

I didn't take this picture (I was otherwise occupied) but this is what the toilets look like at the hospital, pink tile and all.

Gladly, I did not have the baby in the toilet, and the nurse showed up when I came out and took us to a room to drop off all our stuff.  She put the pink, polka-dot birthing ensemble down on the bed so I could get changed, then while I was working through a contraction she acted out where we were supposed to go next.  Then she left.  This turned out to be the theme of the day.  I think the only two delivery rooms at the hospital were occupied when we arrived, so the staff was stretched a little thin.  Once dressed we wandered over to where we thought she had said to go, but were greeted by the closed doors of occupied patient rooms and empty halls.  We waited around in the hallway for awhile; I was needing Drew to push on my low back while I braced my hands against the wall to get me through the contractions so we were taking up a LOT of the hallway, but anyone who walked by us just squeezed past without offering any further instruction.  We were starting to be concerned that we had been deserted when our nurse poked her head out from one of the rooms and ushered us in to the tatami "laboring" room.  Then she left.

I took this picture 5 months ago during the hospital tour.  It is NOT set up as a delivery room.

I had probably three more contractions (hands on the wall, Drew applying admirable counter pressure) before she came back to hook me up to the fetal monitor.  I was hoping I'd be able to stand with the monitor because the thought of laying down made me want to jump out of my skin, but she couldn't find the baby's heartbeat, so to the bed we went.  It did not feel good, and when she lifted the head of the bed up a little bit to try to make me more comfortable, it felt even worse, so I asked her to put it back down, but to collapse it she had to put the bed up even higher, and that felt worst of all.  All of this was during a contraction; I may have yelled a bit.  When we finally got the bed flat again, she apologized profusely and gave me a hug.  I gave her a between-contraction smile to show her I was not upset with her.  And then she left.  The contractions at this point were not messing around.  I was still trying to deep breathe through them, but as I would get to the bottom of my breath my whole abdomen would seize up and spasm.  So, we switched from deep breathing to a sound sort of like "the hum" from Baptists at Our Barbecue.  I was trying very hard to stay relaxed enough to stay out of my uterus's way.  Drew helped me by holding one of my legs like it was in a sling, so I could feel like I was just "hanging" there, loosey-goosey.  In between contractions I rested and fanned my face with gusto--it was hot.  I had probably two more major contractions after laying down before my water broke.  Drew started semi-hollering "sumimasen!" (excuse me!) to the air, then the nurse popped her head back in and we told her it had broken.  And then she left again.  I'd like to say her exit was a little more urgent than the previous departures, but it was not noticeably different.  After two more contractions, I could feel the baby's head between my legs, so I told Drew she was coming, ready or not, and had him help me up into a kneeling position on the bed, sitting on my heels.  He got me untangled from all the sheets and pads, and there was the baby's head!  So he did the only sensible thing to do at that point, and caught her with his bare hands as I gently pushed her out the rest of the way.  He's such a manly man.  He handed her up to me and we had a few glorious moments, just the two of us and our beautiful baby and the sunshine.  It was euphoric!  Then the medical team arrived, saw the baby, and began their chorus of Japanese exclamations.  The necessary equipment was all hustled in from the delivery room (they tried to use an emergency flashlight for a little while, but ended up needing to bring in an actual exam light), Drew cut the cord, and they let us snuggle the baby for about 20 minutes while I finished laboring and they started an IV, then they took her to be assessed and dressed.  The fetal monitor strip from the time it was placed to the time the baby was born was probably as long as my arm.  They never even had time to check me.  The doctor on call came in to examine me for any injury (and found none, which was awesome) and said, as he shook his head and smiled bemusedly, "Sugoi!  Fast birth!  Sugoi!"  Yes it was, Japanese doctor I have never met.  Yes it was.

This birth story was brought to you by:

3 seasons of Call the Midwife

Conversations with Karlie Ady, Aunt Tina, and Annie Billings

Hypnobirthing, The Mongan Method

Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth

... and husbands like Drew!

Thank you!

BABY PICTURES

She was born on August 15th at 11:58, a day before her due date.  She weighed 7 lbs, 4 oz.  I'm not sure how tall she was . . . it was in cm and I never wrote it down.  We were in the hospital from Saturday at 11:15 to Monday around the same time.  

Drew got to stay with us for a few hours after Andelynn was born.

One of her first precious little cries.

When he'd gotten some good snuggles in, Drew went to pick up the kids to meet their new baby sister.  I had to stay in the tatami room until my IV bag drained, but it took forever because I couldn't remember to keep my arm straight.  I was too busy holding this one.  

Here's the Japanese approach to patient identification.

"Foh-bu-su"

We opted for a private room instead of a shared one.  I wanted my own bathroom . . .

The kids arrived and we got to spend our first moments as a family of 5!  

Vivien was a model big sister.

And Rafe mostly tried to jump on everyone.  He'd missed his nap that day, so he was a little out of sorts.  After our visit they left for Hiroshima to fetch Mom from the airport.  I continued the snuggling and studying of every little feature.  

Nana and the kids came back after church Sunday afternoon, and after that Andelynn had her first bath.  

It was pretty exhausting for her.

I had been hoping to leave Sunday afternoon (because that bed was pretty hard and my tailbone was sore!) but since it was a holiday, they didn't have enough staff to do all the tests they needed to before discharge, so we had to stay one more night.  I'm actually grateful it worked out that way, because it forced me to rest more, and then I had more time with her all to myself, to sleep while she was sleeping and get to know her when she was awake.  Look at her marvelously flexible ankles!

Here she is displaying her total lack of circadian rhythms at 3 in the morning.

I love how their whole head fits in the palm of your hand when they are tiny and new.

I had the Japanese menu the whole time I was in the hospital.  I wish I had photographed all the meals, because they were actually pretty yummy, but this was my breakfast Sunday morning.  Grapefruit, milk, cabbage/tofu/seaweed soup, fish, pickled daikon radishes and carrots, and rice.  It was easy to eat everything, because I know the Japanese are very particular about what kind of foods they eat and when.  You want me to eat whole fish after having a baby?  Ok Japan.  I trust you.  

Here we are getting ready to come home.  The head of the bed didn't raise or lower, so they provided a bean bag you could put on your bed when you needed to sit up.  I was very excited to get home to our couch and our Beautyrest mattress and my pillow that was not full of beans.

And it's always nice to have more hands to help hold the baby as well!  Here is Annie showing off her baby kimono in Nana's arms.

And giving the bouncy seat (the one piece of baby gear I could not do without) a try.

Relaxing with Daddy

Mom was the cook extraordinaire while she was here, which meant that I could relax on the couch and enjoy this view.

Also that I could run to the salon and get a badly needed hair cut!  Now Mom and I look even more alike.  Everywhere we went together, people would ask if we were sisters.  It was a nice change for Mom to look like a young mother with me, since she is used to looking like an "old" mother with Colette and Rex.  

Nana gave Annie her first bath at home.

And helped me get all the baby clothes organized and washed.  I had a hard time picturing what I would need and when before Annie was physically here, so we had some work to do!  

Nana said she was glad she got to be here as a witness of Annie's cuteness!

We wanted Mom to get a small taste of Japan while she was here, even though she had not come to sight see.  The beautiful Japanese sunrise was easy to view, thanks to our east facing windows and her jet lag.

We drove through town and found some good Engrish signs for her to enjoy.

We also went for a Sunday stroll around Kikko park to see the castle on the hill.  

And watch all the Japanese kids playing in the fountains.

We never remember swimming suits when we come here . . . but I usually have a change of clothes on hand.

We sampled some Japanese ice cream (it was too hot outside to not!).

And admired the beautiful Kintai Bridge from afar . . .

. . . and close up too.

Andelynn mostly slept in protest of the muggy heat.

But it was nice to have sun after many days of rain!

The next day we did some shopping in town.  At YouMe Town we learned how to wear a yukata.  It was quite a process!  Doesn't she look beautiful?

We also found this depressing shirt:

ANTICIPATION
GRIM COUNTENANCE
MAYBE NOT RIGHT AWAY
If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.
Time passes and little by little everything
that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

And that night we ventured to the Chicken Shack, where we all suffered through sitting on the floor and spilled delicious teriyaki sauce all over our white clothes.  

 It was decorated in a Pirates theme this time.

What a weird place.  

Yarr.

 On Tuesday morning we woke up to sheets of rain and powerful gusts of wind lashing the windows.  We panicked for a bit, wondering if we ought to send Mom to Tokyo on the shinkansen instead of risking a flight from Hiroshima, but the storm ended up being mild enough at the airport by the time her flight left that she was able to get safely away.  I wanted to take a nice goodbye picture with all the grandkids, but Vivien was pretending to be Joseph (she's been watching Joseph, King of Dreams a lot lately) and wouldn't put on a shirt or stand up, and Rafe didn't want to get off his bike.  So, we have this picture instead.   Goodbye Nana!  Thank you for everything!  We love you!

And hello Andelynn!  Thank you for coming to us!  We love you too!

"Waiting for you, yes."

It is done!

Drew watched the kids all Saturday so I could finish up, and it took all Saturday to finish up.  I think this was my first experience sanding anything.  It felt a lot like weaving in ends on a knitting project, which is almost as time consuming as the actual knitting and a lot less fun.

Speaking of knitting, here's a dress I made for my friend's baby shower.  Consequently, it sat in my project box for about a month, waiting for me to weave in the ends.  

But, I did enjoy using the random orbital sander; it is like a magic eraser for wood!  When you use it for hours on end though, your hands feel kind of like this afterwards:

Also, you get covered in a fine dust, which, when combined with copious sweat, turns into a nice wood paste.  It's very attractive.

I used 2 tubes of blue gel food coloring and 2 bottles of rubbing alcohol to stain the bed.  The base runs out of rubbing alcohol all the time, so I used the bottle we already had and was able to bum one off a friend, praying it would be enough to give everything one coat.  It would have been plenty, but what did I do when I had half the stairs, the bottom support rail, and the sides of the platform left to stain?  Set the jar down and promptly kicked it over as I was trying to heave myself back up to a standing position!  I let out a couple strangled "No!"s like Dad when his computer crashes and he hasn't saved his work, then did some frantic painting from the puddle before my drip cloth soaked all of it up.  It's not perfect, but I like how it turned out.  Drew said it makes him think of the beach, so when Vivi's older she can have an awesome beach themed room!  

Here are my woodshop guys: Naoki-san and JJ.  They were so very helpful.  Naoki-san was indispensable in surmounting the language barrier at the hardware store in town, sending me with his personal phone number when I was looking for a suitable varnish so he could explain to the workers there what I needed, then interpreting directions when I'd bring stuff back and not know what to do with it.  JJ answered many woodworking questions (he's very experienced), and made sure I took it easy (well, easier than I would have taken it anyway), helping me with lifting and remembering to take breaks.  When I accidentally glued the stairs on to the frame (I wasn't supposed to if I wanted to be able to fit it into the car) he spent a very sweaty half hour sawing them off for me.  And one day I came in and he was standing by the desk with a big smile on his face.  "Wait till you see it!"  He'd set up a huge fan right next to my work station with a mister attachment so I wouldn't die of heat exhaustion.  They are nice guys.  

All in all, the bed cost $305 to make ($165 for wood, about $65 for wood hobby shop fees, then the rest was screws, sandpaper for the belt sander I didn't really use, varnish, and brushes).  My Italian friend who used to work at Home Depot came to see it and told me I could totally sell it for $500-800.  I think we will keep it for awhile though--Vivi is quite happy with it!

When I set up the bed in the house, Vivien observed me moving some of the boards and said, "Can you hold it?  Are you strong?  Do you have your bones?"

I am both a little sad and relieved that it's done.  I fear I made a bit of a spectacle of myself.  It's a very big project, so anyone who went in to the wood hobby shop couldn't help but see it, and JJ and Naoki-san kept talking me up to anyone who stopped to look at it.  One of the corpsman I used to work with at the clinic asked Drew how I was doing, and he said "She's 8 months pregnant and building a loft bed."  They were laughing about that, then one of the other corpsman said, "That's your wife?!"  One of the nights I was there working on it, the wife of the man who's in charge of the Marine Corps Community Services for the base came up and told me I was "the talk of the town," and every time she came in, there were people taking pictures of the bed.  She said I was an inspiration to them all!  I tried to thank her graciously, but then I got sweat in my eye so it got awkward.  Anyway, hurray for Dads who build their young daughter's confidence by letting them help them with their projects!  Hurray for supportive husbands!  And hurray for the internet!

This seems as good a place as any to put my friend's solution to summer boredom at her house

On Saturday in between varnish coats, we went and saw Inside Out.  We all really liked it, but my favorite part was during the short at the beginning when the girl volcano bursts out of the ocean.  Vivien was holding an overflowing popcorn bucket and jumped so badly when the volcano came exploding out of the water that popcorn went flying EVERYWHERE.  I was laughing so hard . . . She ate popcorn off herself the rest of the movie.

We have been trying to help Vivi learn to write her name.  The first day we tried connecting dots to make V's.  She did a bunch of them really well, then one of them went kind of wonky.  I told her it was ok, and made her mistake into a running girl, then we tried again.  But she was still very frustrated about her mistake, and when one of the V's turned out with a really long side, she completely lost it, throwing markers and papers and herself with frightening zeal.  We quickly ended the lesson for the day.

Then the next day she was just drawing by herself and she wrote her name all on her own!  2 V's and 2 i's.  She was very pleased with herself.  I decided we could definitely afford to celebrate the right letters in the right quantities and worry about order later.  It was an eye-opening experience for me--my daughter has a very different learning style than I do, and I will need to be patient and give her the time and space she needs to figure things out!

This picture is of Rafe (orange), Vivien (blue), and Tarzan (black).  I am loving the addition of lots of fingers and toes to her drawings.  Also eyebrows.  And, "I draw chins now, Mom."  

We've been having lots of fun waiting for the baby to come.  We take glowstick baths.

We get haircuts.

We try very hard to keep our flowers alive in the heat.  Every day by about 10am they all look pretty sad, but it's kind of amazing how fast they perk up after a good drink.

Vivien is proud of her strawflowers.

 We've been swimming at the outdoor pool a lot too.  Rafe is slowly, very slowly, getting more comfortable in the water.  Vivien is improving leaps and bounds.  We are not allowed to suggest skills for her to work on.  All of her swimming progress comes when she watches the other kids in their swim lessons, then decides for herself that she can also do the same things.  She is now leaving the Tot Dock on her own sans flotation devices, swimming out a few feet, coming up and taking a breath, then swimming back.  She floats on her back, jumps off the side into the "deep end" and swims to her Daddy, and spins around and around in the deeper water like a mermaid.  It's amazing to watch her figure it out.  And her tan is something to behold!  This is her without her swimsuit:

After we go swimming, their most oft requested activity is to get "tacos and burritos" at Taco Bell at the Crossroads next door to the pool.  I made them branch out the other day and have Subway.  They got put into a trance by the TV screen mounted on the wall and it hypnotized them into eating all their food.

 I've been killing time this week trying to make some freezer meals for when my hands will be full.  I've been craving lasagna/baked ziti sorts of things, but all the recipes I have call for cottage cheese and they never have any at the commissary.  So, I totally found a recipe for cottage cheese on the internet, and it turned out pretty good.  Heat milk to 120 degrees, stir in some vinegar, let it sit for 30 minutes, then drain the whey off the curds and stir in a little half and half or cream and voila!  Now we can have cottage cheese and potato chips whenever we please!

While I am cooking, the kids are working on learning to play with each other nicely.  They've grown unaccustomed to unstructured play with only each other after being at youchien all day, and it is bringing up all kinds of opportunities to practice being kind, patient, and selfless.  Some days Vivien decides these are qualities she doesn't care to work on, so she takes a break.

I think she looks like a puppy.

I am also having ample opportunities to practice being kind, patient, and selfless with the kids home all day.  I think I am struggling with it about as much as they are.  Last week at church I was trying to help Vivi focus during the sacrament and I had her look around at all the people who were thinking.  I told her they were thinking about the things they had done that week that they needed Jesus' help to do better on.  I told her I was thinking about all the times I had lost my temper and had made her sad.  This week during sacrament she looked at me and asked, "Are you thinking about all the tempers you lost?"

When we do manage to all get along though, wonderfully funny things happen!

Playing dress-up the other day, Rafe had on goggles and was waving around a pair of pom-poms yelling, "I'm a prophet!  I'm a prophet!"

I also overheard Vivien say to Rafe "Do you want chocolate cookie dessert? Then you need to hold my hand and marry me!"

Hopefully the baby will come sometime . . . Last week I woke up one morning and thought my water had broken (Nope, Chuck Testa.) and had to endure a full work-up at Dr. Shoji's before they let me go home in incontinent shame.  Then the next day I had 26 hours of contractions every 10-15 minutes, but they went away.  Now it sort of feels like it will never happen!  Luckily I have good friends who are doing their very best to keep us entertained and busy so I don't have time to go crazy.  Here's hoping my next post will be a baby announcement!  And if it's not . . . at least Mom will be here!

P.S. Funny story from this week I forgot to work in.  One of our friends' kids had a birthday party in the community room downstairs.  I wasn't feeling super well that day, so I sent Drew down with our kids while I took a nap.  While he was there, he got a message from the new industrial hygienist, Jewel, saying she was in Tokyo and on her way to Hiroshima.  This was a surprise because the flight itinerary we had for her didn't have her coming in till the next day!  So, Drew told everyone he was leaving to go pick her up, and when someone expressed concern about me going into labor while he was gone, he said something like, "It'll be fine.  If worse comes to worst, she can just take a cab."  This statement was greeted with shock and outrage, and it took Drew a minute to realize that everyone thought he was talking about sending me to the hospital in a cab, instead of Jewel taking a cab from the airport.