New Baby! - click here to see pictures!

It's been a great week!   Starting off your week Sunday morning with having a new baby is definitely the way to go!  After an incredibly long past 5 weeks, more to come on that in a minute, Samuel Christopher Wee was born into the world healthy as can be.  He was a bit bigger than Cole since he came out at 38 weeks instead of 36 - 7lb 5oz, 18.5 inches long, and has a head fully covered with blonde peach fuzz.

The past 5 weeks have been a bit trying for us.  In the middle of January, the squadron left for the Road Show (Red Flag/Green Flag) and left me in charge of everything.  I elected to stay home because of the proximity of the new baby's due date, and our previous history with Cole being 4 weeks early - so it seemed prudent to stick at home.  Boy was I glad that I did...the weekend after everyone left Jen and I were in the hospital at 33 weeks with labor starting.  33 weeks is a bit early for babies, so the doctors decided to use drugs to try to stop the labor using a sort of muscle relaxant.  Good news was that it worked, the bad news was the side-effects...Jen's blood pressure dropped really low in the meanwhile, and made the whole process pretty stressful.  We spent 3 days in the hospital, and then back home for the week although contractions never really went away from that point on.  Doctors said to come in when we "felt things were changing," but wanted the baby to stay in there to bake longer.  The unfortunate part about it all was that Jen was pretty much in labor the whole time, to varying degrees, for the next 5 weeks.  The following weekend, at 34 weeks, we had to go into the hospital again, and the doctors elected to use drugs one more time to try to keep Sammy in there longer.  It worked again, they shipped us off to Bury St Edmunds again (the Lakenheath hospital really really doesn't like to have premature babies since they don't have a NICU), and after a few more days in the hospital we were back home again playing the waiting game.  For the next 3 weeks, we were in and out of the hospital because there was never any real good way to tell when we were in labor.  The appointments said she was 5cm dilated, but contractions just kept coming with no baby until this past weekend.  Lots of waiting, but overall keeping Sammy in there an additional 5 weeks is way more than we could have hoped for when we were in the hospital that first time.

In the mean time, after the 2nd hospital visit, Kathy broke away from her vacation in Florida to come over to not so sunny England to help us out.  We really thought things were imminent, each day waiting for Sammy to come visit us, but as the weeks went on we all laughed about how ironic it was for Kathy to come over and then not to have the baby when we thought we would.  Regardless, the help that she has provided is really indescribable.  Unfortunately I had a lot of commitments at work to keep things running there, so Kathy was able to fill in for me and keep Jen resting as much as possible while we waited.  Having her here makes us wish so much that we could be closer to family in times of need or not.  We wish the rest of the grandparents could come help and be able to see Sammy for themselves, but hopefully soon!

The labor went pretty well Sunday...about 4-5 hours and Jen was amazing.  The only low point was that the doctor "on call" decided he would take his time coming in while Jen was transitioning and pleading for them to break the water, causing much unneeded pain in my opinion.  Once he showed up things progressed quite quickly and we had Sammy about 20 minutes later.  It was great to be able to say, "It's a boy," when he came out and we're again glad that we waited on finding out what his sex would be.  It was a fun surprise that you only really get to have a couple times (depending on how many kids you have!) in your life.

Now we're just hanging out at home trying to find the new version of normal in our life and getting Sammy on a schedule.  Cole has been taking to him quite well and we're hoping that he continues to allow Sam to merge into our life without pause.  The nice thing about the closeness is that Cole really wont remember not having a brother, and we're excited to see them grow together.  For now, though, we'll just be happy to get a few hours of sleep here and there at night.

We thank the Lord for being so blessed.  The fortune of having two healthy babies in a row is not lost on us.  We feel very grateful.  "Behold, children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.  How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;" Psalm 127:3-5.