Welcome!

Well it's Landis' 3-week birthday and it's taken me this long to post something on her own blog. I'm not off to a great start as a dad, but I'll keep working on it!

The way Landis was brought into the world was quite different than how Piper and Lela were introduced, but equally as exciting, in my opinion. It all started when the doctors became a little concerned about how Landis was growing. Her abdomen was lagging a bit... nothing huge, but something to be watched.

So they got Mystique to go in for ultrasounds at least once a week, more often twice a week. This started, I think, around week 32 or 33 or her pregnancy. It was a busy time, but Mystique was always there doing her tests.

On the day of Mystique's 36th week of pregnancy, we went in for an amniocentesis to see how Landis' lungs were progressing. This was around 9am or so on Friday, September 28th. One of our favorite doctors did the procedure and we were sent back home/work to wait for the results.

As it so happened, at work that day my group was having an end-of-quarter bash at a bowling alley in the afternoon. Because Mystique dropped me off at work after the doctor's appointment, she picked me up at the bowling alley around 4pm with the girls. About three minutes into the ride she said, "So... we're having Landis at 10pm tonight!"

Yowza! I guess the doctor had called her about 10 minutes before she got me, said the baby's lungs were good, when did we want to have her? Mystique, not one to procrastinate, said "tonight!"

So we hurriedly called my parents, setup some babysitting for that night, and Mystique and I went off to the hospital, arriving around 8pm. Of course Mystique was a blast to be with... the nurses all immediately fell in love with her. We had a lot of fun while we waited. I got a kick out of the anesthesiologist, but I'm not sure Mystique was a fan of him.

Anyhow, right around 11:15pm or so we finally got into our operating rooms. It was just about the coldest room I've been in outside of a meat locker. Our doctor was nice enough to provide Mystique some warm blankets while she was prepped for her shot, and then he also draped one over my shoulders. Nice fella.

This time around with the c-section I had a much better view of things and I was more comfortable with standing up and watching. I tried to convey some things to Mystique since she was way more aware with this birth. It was really interesting watching the whole thing. But the best was when Landis finally came out -- the knot in her cord! When the doctor held her up he said "Well, that explains it" and there it was in plain sight -- knot. It was tight, it looked more like a pretzel knot. But that's why Landis' abdomen wasn't growing, she wasn't getting all the food from Mystique!

After that I went back with Landis where she was weighed, looked at, etc... Mystique rolled in around 20-25 minutes later, and there we were... 3 of the happy 5.

I finally went home around 2am to relieve my parents. They were just hanging out in the house, looking tired, but pretty darn happy. And so was I.