I'm almost four weeks late in getting this story written, but the lack of sleep and chasing an almost-three-year-old while tending to a newborn and making sure Lizzie doesn't overdo it after her c-section have kept me from putting together Mitch's birth story. So, without further procrastination, here's what happened up to and on November 13th, 2007.

We thought the day would never get here. I could have sworn Elizabeth had been pregnant forever. At least a year and a half. Of course, a lot of this was due to the miscarriage we experienced last year -- we weren't even 1/3 of the way into that pregnancy when we found out the baby didn't make it. That was back in August and early September. So, along with that loss and the recovery (both physical and emotional) that followed, leading to the welcome news in March that Mitch was on his way babies have been very much on our minds in the past year and a half.

We'd like to think that Mitchell John had that little lost baby as a guardian for him during his time in Elizabeth's belly. The pregnancy itself was blessedly uneventful, though I know I always kept waiting for something bad to happen -- the proverbial other shoe. It never dropped, and I believe our lost, but not forgotten Baby Jasper had something to do with that.

That isn't to say that we slept deeply and without waking once the night before Elizabeth's caesarian was scheduled. I think it took us both until the month of October to truly believe Mitch was coming, so the last few weeks before November 13th were a flurry of activity, and once he was just hours away from arriving -- no uncertainty about him being late or early, which was quite lovely -- reality hit us. We're gonna have another little critter in the house!

I'm telling you all this back-history leading up to Mitch's arrival because his actual birth is more or less anticlimactic. The whole shebang lasted, oh, two hours. As opposed to the mini-marathon we went through with his big brother Drew (see Drew's birth story for all the details, in three parts!).

We got up, somewhat groggily, on the morning of the 13th, dropped an equally groggy Drew off with Elizabeth's parents, and headed to Rex Hospital. No mad dash to get there before the water broke, with the baby crowning, etc. Nah, we stopped off at Starbuck's, I got a latte and a scone, and we checked in at about 7 a.m.



Elizabeth got prepped with one of those lovely backless outfits in the triage area (the women behind the curtain next to us would soon start wailing as she got her IV started -- oh, she was in for a fun delivery!), and we chatted with my mom and Elizabeth's parents before the surgery. My mom, a labor and delivery nurse, got the rock star status at Rex, because she'd worked with half of the nurses and doctors there before she moved on to another job. So it was pretty much a party atmosphere in the cramped room, even though the woman next to us wasn't so happy about those darn needles poking her…

All that was left was the c-section procedure itself, so I got changed into some scrubs and the grandparents went to the waiting area. While Elizabeth went into the operating room to get fed some drugs into her spine, the nurses decided to torture me by putting me in a little room all by myself to wait for the drugs to kick in (for Lizzie, not me, unfortunately). So after all the bustle of the past hour or so, I was suddenly all by myself, with nothing to read or nothing to do. So I worried for about 20 minutes. Would Mitch be okay? Would there be problems since he was breech? Would Lizzie be okay after all the chaos we went through before Drew was born? How am I gonna handle two kids at the same time???

It was the longest 20 minutes of my life:



(So of course I took a picture!)

When eternity ended, one of the nurses told be to put on my facemask and follow her. In the OR, Lizzie was all ready to go: flat on her back, curtain up at her neck, arms spread. I didn't risk peeking over that curtain -- ew. It was 9:30 a.m.

So while the doctor talked about her daughter's school and school uniforms, and Elizabeth commented on how easy all this was, they proceeded (with a really sorta sickened tugging sensation I could feel with my hand on Elizabeth's shoulders) to pull Mitch butt-first out of her belly. At 9:56 a.m., Mitchell John Jasper was born!



The rest of it was pretty much a blur: I got to hold Mitch for the first time (he was all squiggly, with a head of black, glistening hair) and see Mitch get cleaned up (he had Apgar scores of 8 and 9), and then I got to bring him over to meet his mommy. Then, while they were sewing Lizzie up, Mitch and I got to go to the recovery room to get him cleaned up even more, then weighed (8 lbs, 13 oz -- one ounce more than his big brother), and measured (22 inches -- same as Drew!). He got his first bath, then they brought Elizabeth in, and before long, we had our own room.



It all happened so fast, it was hard to really believe it all. We're both still amazed at the sense of calm we feel -- with Drew, we were so worried about every little thing. With Mitch, we know what to expect, and there's not this overwhelming emotional release of fear and uncertainty bubbling up out of us. The second baby is so much easier, in so many ways.



The trick, of course, is handling two kids. Now that's a juggling act...

But all that's part of the learning process. Kids definitely keep life interesting. Never a dull moment. Speaking of, Mr. Mitch just woke up, so I'd better run...