Andrew Paul Herring - The Birth Story

Here's the story of our super fast labor and delivery experience with our newest addition - Andrew Paul Herring.

Tom was working through the night on the night of Thursday, November 3, so after putting Clare and James to bed and doing a few things around the house, I got myself ready for bed as well. About 10 PM, I started to feel a little sick to my stomach. Perfect timing - just as I'm trying to go to sleep. After about half an hour of feeling sick and having some bloody show (if you know what it is, great. If not, go ahead and look it up if you're that curious),I figured that these were signs that labor would probably happen within 24-48 hours (usually these are good indicators). I put on a movie for about another 30 minutes and tried to let the sick feeling pass so I could get some sleep.

Around 11, I was still feeling pretty sick, so I called my mom to ask her to drive back up to our house from Olympia to be with the kids and me overnight. At this point, I just figured that labor would happen in a day or so, but was feeling gross enough that I didn't want to be at home by myself with Tom at work. I also called Tom at work to let him know how I was feeling and that he should be ready to have a baby in a day or so.

Then only 30 minutes later (11:30 PM), I was feeling really sick so I called Tom again at work and asked him to come home. It was about this time that I was able to say that the pain I was having was no longer from being sick to my stomach, but that I was indeed having contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. I asked Tom's sisters Berna and Maddy to come here to stay with our kids so we wouldn't have to load them up and drop them off in the middle of the night, and they headed to our house from Silverdale.

Within 30 minutes (around midnight) the contractions were only 3 or so minutes apart, and no one was here yet. I called Tom's work again to make sure that he'd left, and was about to go next door to ask our neighbor to come stay with Clare and James. Everyone arrived here about 20 minutes later, and in that time I'd gotten the car loaded up and moved out to the street with the keys in it ready to go.

We left for the hospital about 12:30 and Tom shaved off 5 minutes from a normal 20-minute drive, wanting to go quickly, but not wanting to go so much over the speed limit that we get pulled over. We called Jackie and told her that we were headed to the hospital and that if she still wanted to join us, now was the time. We prayed for a healthy delivery and that we'd get there in time, and arrived at the hospital about 12:45 AM, with my contractions only 1 minute apart.

I'm usually pretty calm in labor, so when we arrived and told the security guy at the check-in desk that I was in labor, he took his dear sweet time getting my name spelled right. The second time he asked me how to spell my name, I just responded, "These contractions are 1 minute apart. I need to get back there now." They got us back to a room and I started to disrobe and put the hospital gown on so I could be ready to have a baby in a few minutes. The nurse came in and said, "Oh, well, you look like you're ready to go!" I said something to the effect that I'd like her to check how far I'm dilated because this baby is coming soon. I'm sure they hear it all the time from women who think they're further along than they are, so she was shocked to find out that I was already dilated to 8 cm. Then I found out that this room was not an actual delivery room at all, this was just the triage room where they get people check and decide if they're going to admit them or not.

Once the nursing staff heard how far I was dilated, it was all hands on deck. They were amazing -- we walked down the hall to our actual delivery room and there must have been 6 nurses in there, all doing different things to be ready to receive a baby. Our OB unfortunately lives too far away (bummer, because we love her) to make it in time, so the on-call OB got herself dressed and ready to catch our little one.

After a flurry of activity, there were about 5 minutes of complete calm, where I was able to just let Tom, my mom, and the OB know that I was starting to feel a need to push, and she responded, "We're ready. You just do whatever your body tells you to." It was so nice to hear that after being so concerned with the fast & furious labor that had started only a couple of hours prior. Then, after 2 pushes, our new little son was born at 1:09 AM, weighing 8 lbs. 7 oz. and 20 inches long, and placed directly in my arms. God is so good.

Here are a few pictures from the delivery and with family and friends. I'm sure we'll be posting more soon!

Oh, James

Things I've said to James that I never had to say to Clare:

"No climbing in the pantry!"

"Dryers are for clothes, not kids."

"Get down from the window sill!"

"We go pee pee in the toilet or in your diaper. Not your pillow."

"Rocks are icky; no eating please."

"Don't play in the dog poop!"

"It's Mommy's job to take out light bulbs, not yours."

"Baseball bats are for balls, not people."

A Little Mama

Clare won't go to sleep until all -- I mean ALL -- her babies and bears are cozily tucked in to their own little beds. It's amazing to me how naturally nurturing she is and how much she loves taking care of anyone or anything deemed "little." She's getting so excited for her little brother or sister in just 7 short weeks!

*Note: This is not all of them. She literally had little beds all over her room.

Camping, peaches, friends...and one pregnant picture

We've had a fun few weeks spending time with friends and family.

Last month we went camping with Marc & Nichole and Andrew, Lindsey, & John. It was awesome! Just an overnight trip this time around, which turned out to be a great idea for James's first tent experience (he.would.not.sleep). We brought home tired and VERY dirty but happy kids, and everyone slept well the night we got home!


















Our tent. AKA: the biggest tent known to man. After camping in a "3-person" backpacking tent one time, Tom came home and immediately ordered from Costco an enormous 8-person tent, swearing he'd never again camp in those squished conditions. This sucker will last us at least through 5 more kids.












































I wasn't kidding about the dirt.

We celebrated Ceci & Steph's birthdays together a couple weeks ago, and one of Ceci's requests was a "Ty Lee" cake. She's her favorite character from the cartoon "Avatar," and she really had her heart set on it. So...we figured out how the pros do it, and Anna and I put it together. It turned out really well, and, more importantly, Ceci was really pleased with it.







































We got to see Amelia!!!! Kids had a great time running around together at the Point Defiance Zoo and then again at Mike & Kristine's for a BBQ. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends!



















James, Jack, Clare, and Avila looking at the otters playing.


















Clare was in 7th Heaven getting to hold a sleeping Baby Peter. Thanks, Amelia, for letting her sit there with him for so long!

I decided to tackle 48 pounds of peaches by myself one day. Here are pictures from start to delicious finish.



































Yes, I let my kids destroy the kitchen while I worked on the fruit.


















Here are the lovely results -- a dozen quarts of canned peaches, 5 gallon ziplocs of frozen peaches to use in pies and smoothies, and 9 jars of homemade peach honey.























Um, ignore the goofy facial expression. This is me at 31 weeks.

Out of the mouths of babes

I had a really good discussion with Clare a couple of nights ago...about abortion.

One of our daily Rosary intentions is always, "for an end to abortion." So as I was tucking her in the other night, she asked, "Mommy, what's abortion?" I took a deep breath and figured that since she's been exposed to what it looks like with Tom's signs, it was time to explain it to her as best I could.

I told her that abortion is when a mommy has a baby in her tummy but she decides she doesn't want the baby, so she has a doctor take the baby out before it's ready to be born, and most of the time the baby dies. I explained that the pictures of bloody babies on Daddy's signs is what it looks like when the baby dies during an abortion, and how sad it makes Jesus and Mommy and Daddy that some people make this bad choice.

She said, "Oh, that makes me sad too. But are they bad people?" I said, "No. They're not bad people, but sometimes people make bad choices, so we have to pray for them."

I continued on to tell her that it makes us so sad when bad things happen to babies, that's why Daddy and Mr. Andrew (St. Hilaire) work so hard doing protests with their signs so that people won't be able to make this bad choice any more.

I told her that Mommy and Daddy and Jesus love our babies so much that we would never, ever make this choice, and we hope that other people don't either.

That was it. She understood completely. She now prays for an end to abortion, knowing in her little 3-year old heart that by praying and acting to end it, we can have an effect on the bad choices of other people and make Jesus happy.

So, for any of you out there wondering about the effects of graphic abortion imagery on small children, I would say that we don't need to complicate the issue. We just need to simply explain it to them in ways they can understand (and really, a picture of a bloody baby is not complicated to a kid) and reassure them that we love them, and Jesus loves them, and that we need to work hard to end such a bad thing.

Summer Fun

We've had lots of fun turning these






































and these


















into this (finished raspberry jam not pictured).


















The kids thought it would be a good idea to wear my and Clare's chapel veils while watching Mass on EWTN the other day.


















Our 2nd Annual Forest Park outing with Grandma, Steph, Ceci, Miss Lindsey, and John this week:
















































































































My lavender is going nuts in the front yard! I just had to bring some of it inside to enjoy.

A couple pictures

Guess what color marker James ate. He's pretty proud of his accomplishments.























Our conversation tonight:

Tom: "Kids went down pretty easily. I think they're getting the hang of quieting down quicker with both of them in their room together."

Carrie: "You're right. I guess I hadn't noticed how much faster it was tonight."

(Both thinking this was a major victory for us as parents)

When I went in to our room to get myself ready for bed, this is what I saw:



















Sneaky little monkeys crept in to our bed! No wonder they were so quiet. Oh well. At least they're sleeping, right? Still claiming victory for the parents.