Baby Fisher!

I am sitting on the couch, with a cool breeze blowing in through the window. It feels good to be home. Sophie is asleep in her crib, and Jon and Ransom are having that perfect "newborn sleeps on Daddy's chest while he sleeps" moment.

Yes. Ransom.

Late Wednesday afternoon I started getting really uncomfortable. Around 9pm or so, the contractions got worse, but after having visited the hospital with false labor a couple weeks ago, I was in no hurry to go in. We watched a movie, I took a bath and went to bed. They were still getting worse, but not lasting longer than about 30 seconds, so I didn't think too much of it (though they were about 4 minutes apart at that point...) Finally Jon talked me into calling our friend to stay with Sophie, and we left.

We got to the hospital about 12:30 at night. We went through the whole admittance process in no hurry - the nurse told me later she thought I would be in labor for several more hours. So did I.

Finally, about 1:00am, she checked me out. She got a really surprised look on her face and said she needed to go call my doctor - I was at 9! They told me to not push until the doctor got there (seriously? SERIOUSLY?), which he did a little after 2. I pushed for a few minutes, and at 2:21am on August 20, Ransom Decatur Fisher was born!

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I wrote all that last Saturday. What can I say, I have a newborn and a toddler...

All has been going well. He's eating like a champ and is above his discharge weight. We went to the doctor yesterday for his first routine appointment, and the doctor was afraid he was jaundiced. We did the blood test, and the results were "not alarming" - so we don't have to do anything! What a huge relief...

Sophia absolutely loves him, though by now she has gotten pretty used to him. The first day she wanted to hold him and be by him constantly, the next day she just needed my and Jon's attention. By now the novelty has pretty much worn off. I'm sure there will be more difficult times ahead, but kids adapt easily.

My parents have been here for a few days, which has been a huge blessing. For reasons I'll write about in another post, Jon has had to go to work every day this week, and I've been gone some as well. Having someone here to watch the kids - and keep the house from falling apart - has been wonderful. They're leaving tonight about the same time Jon's family is coming in - so glad it worked out for them to come before school starts!

Ok, I've been writing this over several days, and if I keep going it will digress into more and more rambling. Instead, I leave you with pictures!

Troops' families feel weight of war

This is a bit of a read, but it does a great job at displaying some of the difficulties multiple deployments place on military families. It references Strong Bonds, the retreat program we just did in Nashville.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to demand long and multiple deployments of soldiers, the Army high command is focusing more attention on a tragic consequence to military families. Soldiers and their spouses are learning to live separate lives — the soldier at war, the spouse at home with the children — and it is becoming more difficult with each deployment to get back together.

Read the whole article here: Troops' families feel weight of war - there is also a short video on the site of one couple talking about their life in the military.

38 and counting.

Well, here it is, August 12, the date that was my guess to have the baby.

The end is not in sight. I went to the doctor this morning, who informed me - unsurprisingly - that there has been no change in the past 2 weeks. The way I have been feeling, I expect the baby to make his grand appearance around Halloween - I feel the same as I did a month ago, except even fewer of my clothes fit! The other day I didn't update my Facebook status all day, so my sister took that to mean I was in the hospital! No such luck...

What is nice is that, since I got everything done that I wanted to before our Nashville trip, I have been enjoying relaxing and reading these past couple weeks!

Ah yes, Nashville. I suppose that's something non-baby I could talk about. The Army, in its ever infinite wisdom, realized a few years ago that - surprise - the military doesn't exactly make marriage easy. And since, in most cases, happy marriage = happy Soldier = good Soldier, they decided to do something about it. Hence the inception of Strong Bonds.

Strong Bonds is a Marriage Enrichment Retreat program run by Chaplains. Two weeks ago, Jon and I, along with 19 other couples from Redstone, went to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville for a few days for this retreat. Aside from a few minor hiccups, all went well! Jon taught on, among other things, The Five Love Languages and healthy conflict resolution. He is a really great teacher - of all the hats he wears as a Chaplain, that's probably his favorite! The couples seemed to interact with the material and respond well to it. Though these events take a ton of work on Jon's part, it is great knowing that these marriages are better off because of it.

We were planning on staying an extra night, but I thought I was in labor. Silly me. I think all the walking around made me go into false labor, and being 2 1/2 hours from home, I didn't want to risk it... It was a beautiful hotel, albeit a little ostentatious. The photo is of us at the garden. INSIDE the hotel.