A Memorable Memorial Day

As we were walking as a family on Sunday night, we retold each of the children's birth stories and talked about how exciting it is that we didn't know the birth story of our new baby yet, but that we would soon and we'd be retelling it over and over after that.  Well...here is the new baby's birth story. 

At about 1am Monday morning May 28th, I was awaken by contractions.  The contractions weren't very painful, but they were strong enough that I couldn't sleep so I went to the couch and finished reading "To Kill a Mockingbird."  At about 4am I went back to bed and slept for about 30 min. dreaming that I was having contractions and I was trying to get Chris to stop what he was doing and take me to the hospital.  At around 6am,  I got out of bed and decided to get things ready to go to the hospital.  I called Chris' mom and told her that she should plan on coming down to watch the kids as I'd been having contractions since 1am and they were between 2-5 minutes apart.  Chris and I worked on getting things done around the house and yard and told the kids that we would most likely be having a baby sometime today.  At around 9am my contractions slowed down considerably to only about every 15 min.  I called the doctor and he said not to come in unless my water broke or I couldn't handle the pain of the contractions anymore.  I continued to do housework and made some cookies with Clarissa.  At around 11am I took a nap and when I woke up Chris' mom was here.  I was still having contractions about 15 min. apart, but nothing too serious, so after lunch, we went down to the river to go swimming.  At first I just sat on the shore with Laura, she was worried about me getting in the water.

Everyone else was having a great time in the water and it was really warm outside.

So I got in the water and did a little swimming, it felt really good during contractions to be in the water and really helped me cool off.  This picture was taken at 2:30pm.  At around 3:30, we went back home to get changed to go do some shopping in Christiansburg.  In the car at 4pm, on the way to Christiansburg (about 20 min. away from home) I started timing my contractions again and they were 4 minutes apart.  While shopping I kept having to stop to breathe through the contractions because they were getting a lot stronger.  When we got home, everyone else ate our Memorial Day BBQ and I got a heating pad for my back and sat down to breathe through the contractions.  At about 6:30 I went outside and told Chris that he should probably finish his dinner so that we could go to the hospital.  He had to make a phone call to find someone to take Jared to collect flags for Memorial Day for Scouts and then get his stuff together.  Meanwhile my contractions were getting closer together and much stronger.  Although I had been pretty calm up to this point, I started getting a little worried and feeling like it was really time to go to the hospital.  The kids could see that I was in pain and the girls kept giving me hugs and saying "I love you Mommy" but I couldn't really respond to them, I just had to focus on making it through the contractions.  When Chris was ready to go, Laura had to help me to walk to the van.  As soon as I sat down in the van at about 7am, my water broke.  Our baby boy, Seth Austin Mattson, was born 18 minutes later!  We barely made it to the hospital in time (it is about a 15 min. drive from our house).  It was a scary and painful drive to the hospital, we called 911 to get transferred to the hospital to let them know we were coming, but the doctor didn't make it in time (he was enjoying his Memorial Day BBQ at home).   I literally had time to be wheeled into a room, throw my clothes on the floor, climb into the hospital bed and two contractions later he was born.  One contraction for the head and the next one, he was out, a perfectly wonderful baby boy.

The proud Daddy meets his son.  Because we were only in the hospital for like 5 minutes, the nurses didn't know that we did not know the sex of the baby, so Chris was the one who told me that he was a boy.  He also cut the umbilical cord.

The kids were so surprised when we called them only 30 min. after leaving home to tell them that I had the baby.  We waited to tell them that the baby was a boy until they met him at the hospital.

Mom with her five kiddos.  These pictures make me laugh because I'm still wearing my jewelry, I just didn't have time to take it off!  I did feel pretty good after the deliver.  I really enjoyed this birthing experience of not having any monitors, IVs or pain medication.

Seth was born weighing 8lbs 13 oz and was 21 inches long.  What a big boy, but he looks so small next to Daddy's hands.

Another part of the adventure was that in our rush to leave the house, I left behind the camera card to the good camera so the pictures aren't great, but at least we have them.  Also, Chris' mom got sick as she was leaving to bring the kids to the hospital, so she didn't get to hold Seth, but she at least got to come in and see him.

We had the nurse wait to give him his bath so that the kids could watch.

He's adorable and looks a lot like the other kids did at birth.

We immediately fell in love with this little guy and are so happy to have him as a member of our family.

We Love Food

 I really like food.  I like to buy it, cook it, smell it, eat it, and even take pictures of it.  Thank goodness, my family shares that love and we have many great family meals together laughing and talking and enjoying each others company.  One of our favorite meals of the year is on Cinco de Mayo.  This year I made chicken enchiladas, black bean and corn dip, and some yummy guacamole.

 We also love to have Chinese for dinner.  Okay, that's a bad joke.  We do enjoy eating Chinese food, but we also enjoy having people over for dinner and recently we've had the opportunity to invite some of Chris' colleagues from China.  This time there were 6 of them and we had to get really creative to fit 12 people in our small dining room, but we did it!  They wanted traditional American food so I made meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, rolls, jello with fruit cocktail and marshmallows in it, green beans with bacon and peach cobbler for dessert.

 I'm not the only one in the family that likes to cook and for Mother's Day morning I woke up to this yummy breakfast of heart-shaped, pink pancakes with sausage and eggs made by Jared.  The kids also decided that since we had spent all day on Saturday working in the garden that they would give me a garden of sweets for Mother's Day.

 For my Mother's Day dinner, I wanted to cook it, but Clarissa helped.  We made Tilapia, rice, artichokes, stuffed mushrooms (a little bit of heaven) and a salad with lettuce and spinach from the garden.  Everyone kept joking that this was definitely a Mom's meal, but everyone ate at least part of it.  I got to eat most of the artichokes and stuffed mushrooms myself which I sure didn't mind.  Now I'm wondering what the next excuse for a feast will be.

I Feel Like...a Small Planet

So, the other day as I was trying to roll off the couch, I said, "I feel..." and Jared finished my sentence by saying, "...a blimp, a small planet, an overstuffed sofa."  I could have taken offense, but I just laughed because he was so right, that's exactly how I feel.  At 36 weeks, I am definitely getting into the uncomfortable stage of pregnancy: pelvic pain, rib pain, heartburn, lack of sleep and just an overall feeling of being too big and too stretched.  However, as I consider the pain and discomfort compared with the opportunity to create a life, I am happy and know that it is so worth it.  I think I have also started nesting.  Last weekend, I helped the girls to rearrange and clean up their bedroom.  This weekend I reorganized and cleaned up the schoolroom, thanks to a new shelving unit built by my talented hubby.  We also finally bought some diapers, some onsies, some receiving blankets, and some pacifiers; all we need to have a baby until we find out whether it's a boy or girl.  We are starting to get really excited to meet this new member of our family. 

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