Baby Brown

When given the option to be induced a week early, and knowing we would be out of town on her due date, Shalae enthusiastically said yes! Because Jon usually gets light-headed during delivery, Shalae asked if I was willing to be in the delivery room, and of course I agreed!

Tuesday was the big day. After playing the hurry and wait game from mid-morning until about 5:00 in the afternoon, Baby Brown was finally ready to make his debut. As it turned out, Shalae only had to push through a few contractions, and Jon stayed by her side through the entire delivery. I wasn’t needed after all, but I’m so glad I was there to witness the birth of our newest grandson!

Even though we were all focused on Shalae’s breathing and Baby making his way into the world, I couldn’t help notice how beautiful Shalae was as she gracefully held her breath, and it was a tender moment when Baby took his first breath. I felt so blessed to experience such a precious miracle. It was amazing to watch the calm of Mom and Dad with their newborn just a few minutes after delivery amid the busyness of the nurses and doctor. Time stood still and nothing else mattered at that moment.

Baby Brown was born Tuesday evening at about six o’clock and weighed in at 6 lbs. 6 oz. and measured 19” long.

I keep calling this new arrival Baby because that’s been his name for over eight months. In fact, family and friends have given countless suggestions and voted on several names over the months. Finally, early this morning, Shalae and Jon sent a text and asked us to get Ashton’s, Cooper’s, and Phoebe’s thoughts on two names that were new to the list. They expected to be home before the kids got out of school, but they couldn’t leave the hospital without deciding on a name, and they wanted the kids to help make the final decision.

Owen Davis Brown is sweet and perfect in every way, and we’re all so excited to have him here and part of our family! I had to practically pull myself away from this little bundle of joy several times during the last two days, and I’m pretty sure Baby Owen will be our last stop before we depart for OnStage and our first stop once we return!

Girl Time

I spent a couple of days with my sisters and mom and was reminded how much I enjoy girl time, especially with family. We chatted about all sorts of things, ate mostly healthy food (had to have some chocolate!), did a little stamping and shopping, had massages and pedicures, and laughed a lot!

I came home early to witness Baby Brown's birth, which was beautiful. I'll blog about that tomorrow...when I have better photos...and he has a name!

Three Thank You Cards

If you're looking for a few cool thank you cards, look no more! And these are perfect for the men in your life...or a great gift for the men in your life to send.

A Shower for Shalae (and Phoebe)

I planned to have a baby shower for Shalae, but since she had nearly everything she needed, we decided against it. When she found out there would be no shower, Phoebe was heart-broken. Then some women in our church had a surprise baby shower for Shalae, and Phoebe wasn’t invited. Again, she was heart-broken. So we decided to have a small shower with just us girls.

Three generations of Gardner girls (except Shanna and Abbie) gathered at Dear Lizzie for sandwiches, chips, and cupcakes. We played a guessing game, wrote wishes for “baby,” and named the baby (well, we gave lots of ideas!). It was a simple and nice evening together.

I guess that means “baby” can come any day now!

It was a normal day… and then it wasn’t.

I asked Sara to guest blog today so that she could tell you about Sean’s and her experience this week:

Tuesday October 11^th started out like any other day; school, work, running kids around, that kind of thing. We even decided to eat dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant. Yum! After saying goodnight to the kids, I found Sean in our room with a weird look on his face. When I asked him what was wrong, (pulling up Google at the same time—gotta love Google!) he said he was experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath, his neck was hurting, and his arms were feeling heavy. As I listened to him talk, all of the color drained from his face and a sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. He was experiencing all of the symptoms of a heart attack!

So…we got into the car and headed to the ER. Vitals were taken, EKG and chest X-rays done, along with a myriad of other things, and all we could do was wait. About an hour after that, the doctor came in and let us know that things looked fairly normal but they were going to keep him for another 5 hours so that they could take another blood test. Apparently it takes about 6 hours after pain starts to see irregularities in the blood. At that point we had pretty much convinced ourselves that it was something else like Pericarditis causing the pain, but around 5am they came to take Sean’s blood again and 45 minutes later another doctor came in and informed us that they would be taking Sean to a different hospital with a cardiology department because it looked like he was suffering from a heart attack.

I couldn’t quite process what the doctor was saying… how could Sean (at 41 and fairly healthy) be having a heart attack?! I proceeded to ask a million questions and they got him ready for an ambulance transfer.

To make a long story short, Sean went in for a coronary angioplasty and stent procedure where they went in through an artery in his wrist and were able to clear blood clots from his right coronary artery and put in two stents. Less than 48 hours after this whole ordeal started we were sent home. Sean is doing well and we are so grateful for modern technology, excellent doctors and nurses, and the love, support and prayers of countless family, friends and neighbors. Thank you!

Life is fragile, so as Sean says, “Live every day as if it was your last. No regrets!”