Welcome, Baby Moses!

(This is daddy's take on the events of the last two and a half days. I'm sure Mommy will provide her own take once she gets home).

Hey everyone, this is the first I've had the time and alertness to sit down and write out a longer-than-a-Facebook-status update, so thanks for bearing with us.

Katie started getting contractions Sunday night. She couldn't sleep because of her pain, I couldn't sleep because of my nervousness; we called the midwives since we were doing a home birth and didn't want the baby to come before they were here. In retrospect, we should have just headed to the hospital then because Baby was huge and, in the words of the doctor who delivered him, "[Katie] couldn't have pushed that baby out even if she had 20 years." But, without the aid of retrospect, Katie carried on with labor all through Monday and the following morning until she, the midwives, and I collectively came to the doctor's same conclusion around 11:00am on Tuesday. We headed over to Alexandria hospital, Katie received a C-section around noon, and that's when Baby came onto the scene.

They put Baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for fear that he ingested some meconium on his first gasp of air and possibly suffered some head trauma from all of the futile pushing. But, thank Jesus, everything looks good for him; he didn't take in much meconium at all and, although he does seem slightly stressed from the ordeal (as he sleeps he'll occasionally crinkle his face and shudder), his major organ systems appear to be functioning properly. All babies must stay in the NICU for a mandatory 24 hour minimum, so hopefully they'll move him out very soon. They were hinting at him staying longer just so they could be doubly sure of his progress--I'm sure their caution is sincere but I wouldn't be surprised if they were also trying to prove a point since the doctors were none too pleased that we had attempted a home birth without the presence of professional OB/GYNs.

I'll just say that I'm truly thankful that we live in a country that gives us the freedom to attempt to have a child the old fashioned way AND has an exceptional medical system available for us when the old fashioned way would have resulted in anything less than Katie and the baby being wholly OK. And I'm truly, deeply thankful that both Katie and the baby are recovering nicely and will both be back home by the weekend. Thank you for all of your prayers and support for I know for certain without God's intervention things would have turned out worse. In fact, as they were wheeling Katie into the operating room, I felt the peace of God and I knew things were going to turn out well.

Here are the stats:

Birth date: 2/17/2009 at 12:17pm
Weight: 9 lbs, 14 oz, Height: 22"" (he looks especially ginormous in comparison to some of the other babies in the NICU)
Name: Moses Franklin Wolf

When Katie was first pregnant, we told the Caleb and Joshua that there was a baby in mommy's tummy. They would sometimes refer to the baby as "Baby Moses" because they were accustomed to that phrase from one of their favorite pop-up books, "The Story of Moses." The name stuck; it also was relevant since Moses, Caleb, and Joshua were contemporaries. To boot, Moses Wolf is a very manly sounding name in my opinion and will sound especially good when prefixed by "Dr.," "Chief Justice," or "President." Franklin is the middle name of two of Moses' great grandfathers, and is incidentally the last name of the head midwife, too.

Thanks, everyone, for your prayers and concerns, we're touched by them and appreciate them greatly.