Austin (TBD) Droubay!!!!

Yes, it has finally happened!! This morning at 12:51 AM Austin officially joined our family. Other than a pronounced lack of sleep, mother and baby are doing great. He weighs in at a slim 6 pounds 6 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches long. He has long fingers and a pretty even layer of fuzz all over his head. Now that all of the important details are out of the way, I'll share a bit about how things played out yesterday.

Saturday morning we decided that we would take a bit of a day trip. Melanie was feeling good, the weather was phenominal and we were all pretty sick of hanging out around the house so we all piled in our car with grandma and grandpa Lewis (who were visiting for Thanksgiving) and headed for the coast. We had a great day looking at the Monarch butterflies resting during their migration, walking along the beach and cutting down a Christmas tree. Melanie was a trooper and walked up and down the mountain side in search of just the right tree for the better part of an hour.

Apparantly all of the climbing did the trick because after we got home in the evening she started having pretty regular, stronger than usual contractions. Things were pretty significant by about 9:30 or so, but Melanie wanted to make sure that she was actually in labor before heading in to the hospital. You see, since she is a labor and delivery nurse she thinks that getting sent home by fellow nurses would be the ultimate humiliation. After a few more very strong, increasingly painful contractions she finally agreed to go in. Long story short, when we got there she was measuring an 8 and delivered within about 2 hours of arriving at the hospital.

Things went very fast and we worried that she wasn't going to be able to get her epidural in time. She was in a lot of pain, but held herself together far better than I did. She gritted her teeth, let out a few Mormon cuss words (I remember a lot of "crap" "o my gosh" "gosh dang it" and "shoot" flowing) and squeezed the blood out of my hands to get through the labor pains. Eventually the epidural was in place and she got enough medication in her system to take the edge off of the actual delivery. After 5 good pushes Austin was out and crying. Awesome. Tyler and Kenzie came to the hospital this morning and took turns holding their baby brother. They will be great siblings and I'm somewhat confident that Austin will survive their company.....

I'm always amazed at the kind of person that my wife is, but I don't think I've ever been more proud of her than I was last night--she was dominant. It was wonderful to have Melanie's parents here to help in the delivery room and take care of Ty and Kenny at home. Thank you Lewises!!! We have realized how much we miss all of our family in other places and wish that we were closer so that we could see you all and enjoy your company, but we are aware of your prayers and thoughts. Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts--we will keep you posted as things happen over the next weeks. I'm posting a lot of pics--hopefully they all show. We love you all--Mike

Visiting baby brother.

I'd forgotten how much newborns like to do this.

Bundled up.

Tyler doing a great job of holding Austin.

Kenzie making us a little nervous.

We hope that he keeps sleeping as well as he has so far.