CLEMENTINE

Welcome Clementine Elizabeth Harper!!

She arrived at 1:30pm Friday, May 2nd.

8lbs 1oz, 20 3/4 inches long.

Korrie woke me up around quarter to six to say, "today's the day." So we mustered the troops, readied the house and loaded the van by around 9 and, ironically enough, stopped by our auto mechanic's shop to see if he could fix our dash panel! He said it might take a little bit and i said,"how long is that? my wife's in labor in the van." He laughed and then looked shocked. We rescheduled, then headed into Nicholasville and got some gas and paid the water bill. We got to Nancy's (our Nurse Midwife) office to get checked at around 10am. Korrie was at a 5, so we walked the parking lot for a couple hours, while my parents headed our way with some breakfast.

At quarter to 12 we were at a 6 and we went over to the hospital. Nancy reserved a room with a tub for us, so after several long minutes of being strapped up to monitors and answering questions and signing here and here and bailing hot water from the sink into the tub, at 12:30-ish Korrie was able to relax in the tub and work through contractions without distractions. Everyone finally left, I turned out the lights in the bathroom and let her do her thing. (i'll do another post called "Korrie in labor") At about 1:15, i went in to check on her, knelt down and held her hand. She worked through a contraction. With the next contraction, she furrowed her brow, breathed heavily several times, then grunted. She said she felt like pushing. I offered to get Nancy, she said wait. . .i waited, she grunted again, i went into the hall, spotted Nancy and waggled my finger for her to follow (the less you say the better off you are in these situations). When we got back to the bathroom, i knelt, the light was turned on and Nancy went wide-eyed. She put on some gloves and half-jokingly said, "we're going to have this baby in the tub!" Korrie took this as a green-light, she grunted again. Korrie offered to get out of the tub, Nancy considered and decided to see one more contraction. With that contraction the baby was mostly out. With another couple pushes Clementine was on Korrie's chest in the tub. Seeing as how it's not exactly legal to birth in the tub at St. Joe East, and none of us had done this before, i took Clementine and the midwives helped Korrie to the bed. We were instantly famous throughout the hospital. And then serenity came to a halt and it was grand-central-station once more. Every new nurse that came in was talking about the water-baby. Here do this, lets go here or there, we need to take the baby over here. So, while Korrie was finishing up, I was playing protector/defender (imagine me checking nurses into the glass on an ice rink--almost). We are so thankful to all of you who pray for us and to have another wonderful birth and a beautiful little girl.