Yes, she has a name...

Noelani Alissa Watkins - Noelani is Hawaiian (duh) and means "mist of heaven". 

God has blessed us with a granddaughter!

Mike and I have quite a few different posts going on Facebook with updates throughout the journey today, so some of this may be a repeat but I wanted to get everything in one place!

The stats:  Baby D-W (Daley-Watkins) was born today at 3:06 PM, a girl, 7 lbs, 7 ozs, 20 inches long.  That's not counting the inch and a half long black hair all over her little head!  Dark, dark eyes....and lots and lots of black hair. 

The basic story:  Christa went into the hospital last night around 9:30 PM in preparation for being induced this morning.  She needs to have gall bladder surgery and it was time for this baby to be born.  They gave her some kind of prep-pill last night that was supposed to 'get things ready'.  She slept some, but not a lot and then this morning at 8 AM they hooked her up to the pitocin pump.  Things were moving slowly, she was only 1 cm dilated until about 10 AM, then she was finally up to about 4 cm at noon.  She had her epidural so was able to catch some cat-naps late morning, early afternoon.  After they checked her at noon, she decided to try to sleep again so we adjourned to the family waiting room to play online.

At 1:29 she sent me a text and I asked if she'd been able to sleep.  She said a little.  At 1:39 she sent a one word text "Come!".  I figured she was done trying to sleep and was ready for us to come back to her room to visit.  I told her I'd be there in a minute, was powering down my laptop, blah blah.  We sauntered back to her room and were met at the door by a nurse who looked at me and said "Just Mom".  Huh?  I'm thinking why is she only wanting to let me in??  Mike is standing there looking lost.  The nurse must have gotten a clue from my clueless face and said that they were ready to deliver.  EXCUSE ME??  An hour and a half ago she was only at 4 cm??  Are you serious??  Yup.  Grandpa - you go back to the waiting room, we'll call you. 

OKAY!  So we were on the way.  Christa had sent Gene away and had to text him to get back there ASAP.  I think he may have dropped a venti cafe mocha mid-stride and then executed an OJ Simpson-through-the-airport maneuver to get back there (and if you don't get that, never mind). 

Baby D-W did all she could to NOT be born, but after about and hour and 15 minutes of pushing she finally let go and decided to let us take a look at something besides that long black hair. 

And what we saw was the cord wrapped around her neck.  That slowed things down a bit as the midwife had to clamp and cut the cord before delivering.  The baby's eyes were already open at this point trying to figure out what the heck was happening.  She was born quickly after that and they took her to the incubator to clean her up.  I heard her crying but they were not pleased with her color - she was very very pale and not 'pinking up' as they though she should.  So they wisked her away to the NICU - daddy went with her while I stayed with Christa through the rest of the process called childbirth.

You can imagine how tough it was to see your baby taken away even before you could hold her; it was 2 hours later before Christa was able to finally see her baby up close and hold her.  Both mom and baby are doing well as of about 6 hours later.  We left them at the hospital exhausted and coming down from an emotionally draining day.  :-)

At this point it looks like Christa and baby will be coming home on Friday; she has a bit of healing to do from the procedures necessary to convince baby to come all the way out.  :-)  And then next Friday is Christa's gall bladder surgery. 

We, of course, already have a bazillion pictures of our adorable granddaughter but here are just a few for those of you who haven't seen any yet:

Things I like about living in Colorado

As we contemplate where we may be living next, I've been thinking about what I've enjoyed about living in Colorado Springs.  We arrived here last December, so not quite a full year yet but here are my observations:

• Pikes Peak - yeah, an obvious one but it's still worth mentioning. We're are 6,000+ feet elevation and it's hard to imagine when I look out my kitchen window at that mountain that it's another 8,000 feet high!  An awesome sight and I've thought more than once that you could take a picture every day of it and it would look different.  The sunlight shining on the Peak, storm clouds rolling over it, huge lightning bolts attacking, it's totally cool.  :-)

• Seasons!  There are actually distinct seasons here.  I was an Air Force brat so we moved quite a bit, but until 2 years ago, I'd lived in California since I was 10.  (Yes, a very long time.)  And while California weather has its advantages, there aren't real dramatic changes between the seasons in a lot of the places.  (Yes, I know it snows in parts of California)   And when we lived in Alabama it was just too icky to even notice what was going on outside beyond the fact that the humidity was 150%.  But here in Colorado there are actual seasons. 
  
  • Winter is awesome!  Not as much snow as I expected, but enough to make it beautiful.  And living right at the base of the Rocky Mountains makes for some pretty gorgeous snow-capped mountains!  And I saw sparkly 'diamond' air - when it's so cold that there are little frozen crystals floating around - hard to breathe, but dang it's pretty!
  • Spring was wetter than expected, but wow did the greenery explode!  We have a chain link fence around our house and yard and the vines grew so fast and thick that we have had a solid wall of green for a privacy screen.
  • Summer could have been a bit warmer (our pool never did get really warm enough to actually swim in without tempting hypothermia) but we did have some really nice days.  The only bad part about summer is that 'the' mountain gets  a bit ugly.  No snow OR green up there...just a big, grey rock.  But the frequent thunder and lightning storms during this past summer were absolutely thrilling to watch! 
  • Autumn is just arriving now, the nights are beginning to drop down into the 50's and there is a definite tinge in the air that says 'fall'.  As I write this, it is POURING rain outside and the thunder and making the hospital building rumble like an earthquake.
• The altitude - yeah, when we first moved here I had a killer headache while getting acclimated to living over a mile up in the sky.  And to be honest, I think it takes a bit longer than a few days to get used to the general lack of oxygen.  But you know what?  After you've been operating at something like 70% oxygen-saturation level for a few months, you kinda get used to the light-headedness.  It makes for some HUGE sky vistas and super clean air!  And you just have to like a place that sells T-shirts that say: "Dude!  I think this whole town is high!!"

• The Colorado Springs Sky-Sox baseball team!   I love baseball - one of my favorite ways to spend a Sunday afternoon when we lived in Huntington Beach was to go to an Angels game (second only to spending the day AT the beach!).  Nothing says summer like an afternoon at a ballpark - getting a slight sunburn, drinking a couple ice-cold beers from the roaming vendors and maybe chowing down on a hot-dog or two.  Standing up and belting out "Take me out to the ball game!" during the 7th inning stretch, yelling for the rally monkey (at Angel Stadium) or the Sky Sox Fox (at Security Field in Colorado Springs) - it just makes for a heck of a fun time!  We had a blast going to several of the games here this summer - if we are still here next year we're going to get some kind of season ticket package.  Even Sarah enjoyed going - mostly because she has a crush on the Sky Sox Fox I think.

• There are 3 - count 'em - *3* military installations here.  Mike is retired Army National Guard and it's absolutely wonderful to be able to take advantage of the (limited) benefits our government allows ARNG retirees to access - namely commissary and PX privileges.  While I'm sometimes the first to complain about going to the commissary, it's really because I hate to go grocery shopping *anywhere* - be it Safeway, Albertsons, or the military commissary.  BUT the prices simply cannot be beat when I take advantage of shopping on one of the milirary bases here.

• And of course, the best thing about living in Colorado is the fact that our middle daughter Christa lives here.  And as of about 7 hours ago, our first grand-daughter was born and lives here as well.  Can't beat that!
• So whether we end up staying here another year (or two), or are lucky enough to be accepted by Habitat for Humanity as volunteer coordinators in Poland, Hungary or some other country, I've very glad we live right here in Colorado Springs right now.

Time Moves On

It was 23 yrs ago this month we were setting up a nursery.

For this little one...

So here we are again, setting up a nursery..

 For this same girl...

As of tonight she is checked into the delivery and soon we'll have our next grand baby.

Is it Monday again already??

Yup, these are cloth diapers - painstakingly made by ME...mostly in the wee hours early this morning.  (Note to self:  NEVER buy a used sewing machine off Craigs List again!  I don't care how great a deal it is, or what the make & model is, I'm done with trying to figure out the idiosyncrasies of other people's machines!!  Give me a $99 machine from Target that works right!!)

If you know Christa at all, you know she is a hippie at heart.  From her vegetarian diet, to using vinegar to clean everything rather than something 'chemically', to hanging her wash outside to dry rather than using the dryer, she's all about 'being green' and saving money.  So it's no surprise that she plans on using cloth diapers for our newest grandbaby. 

And you have to admit, they ARE kinda cute - can't you just picture a little baby butt crawling across the floor clothed in little flannel penguins??  These have a layer of some fancy-named plastic stuff in them so you don't need plastic pants.  Way cuter than the plain old white ones I remember...

And if you're so inclined, we would really appreciate your prayers for Christa!  It is Sunday evening right now, she has another midwife appointment tomorrow morning and she has taken just about all she can with her gall bladder pain.  Twice in the last 24 hours she's been feeling worse than ever - to the point of considering going to the ER.  And that's with taking some strong pain medication pretty much all the time.  It's time for this little one to show up so that Christa can turn around and have gall bladder surgery and start healing. 

We'll keep our website as well as our Facebook pages updated - thanks!!