At: 8:14 am
Eyes: Blue Gray
Hair: Black
Height: 20-1/2in.
Weight: 7 lbs. 13 oz.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004: Well, Rian (pronounced like Ryan) is 1 week old today!
Here’s his birth story:
Sunday, March 28, 2004: Hunter was getting Chase ready for bed. Hunter was telling Chase how someday Chase might have babies of his own. Out of nowhere, Chase tells Hunter that he has a baby sister. Hunter, caught off-guard, asked him what he just said. Chase repeated that he has a baby sister. That following Friday, April 2, we found out that we were pregnant!
Since Chase was right about the pregnancy, we were sure that he was right about the gender of the baby. We called the baby "Alexa" for pretty much the whole nine months of pregnancy. Again, as with our first pregnancy, we didn’t want to find out the gender of the baby before s/he was born but we were just so sure! Only Hunter’s mom, Anna, held out strongly for a boy! Needless to say, both Hunter and I were absolutely shocked that it was Baby Rian who appeared last week! We are so, so very happy, though, that he is ours and that he is another wonderful, healthy boy to love!!!
The pregnancy was a bit tougher for Mindy this time. A bit more nausea and lots more tired. Being 3 ½ years older at 40 and 41, since being pregnant with Chase, might have had something to do with it. All in all, though, Mindy still loved being preggy and is grateful that her pregnancy was still probably easier than most.
Chase was a week late from his due date so Mindy pretty much thought that this baby would be late as well. As the preggy weeks progressed, though, it seemed that this baby was a bit bigger than Chase. When Mindy was already 3cm dilated 2 weeks before the due date of December 7, then she got a little panicked that this baby would come early, after all!
Mindy decided that she would like to try and have this baby VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). Things were looking good since the baby’s head was pretty low and Mindy was already 4 cm dilated by the time she finally had contractions on her due date!
December 7, 2004: The first real contraction came at about 2pm in the afternoon. By 8:00pm, the contractions were coming within 10 minutes apart. Hunter and Mindy’s dad have been remodeling the bathroom for the last couple of weeks; Hunter asked if there was time to do a Home Depot run and finish up a couple of things before going to the hospital. Typical guy, huh? Mindy told him that she thought so since she was supposed to wait until the contractions were 5 minutes apart. So off to Home Depot Hunter and Mindy's dad go. They come back by 9:00pm. By 10:00 pm, we were headed to Rose Hospital with contractions within 3 minutes apart.
December 8, 2004: Things were progressing pretty well until about 2am. Mindy had dilated to 7cm. But then things regressed. By 7:00am, Mindy had gone back to 5cm dilated. The contractions, which had gotten weak and were being helped with Pitocin, were not strong enough to move the baby further down. We decided with our doctor that it was time to go ahead and have another C-section. A bit disappointing but definitely the right thing to do to get the baby out safely. Unfortunately, the epidural wasn’t effective enough to withstand the surgery so they had to put Mindy completely under for the operation.
By 8:14am, Baby Rian was born!!! He is absolutely beautiful and we love him oh so much!
Saturday, December 11, 2004: Mindy and Baby Rian came home!
We named him John Rian but we will be calling him Rian. Had to keep with tradition of having the boys called by their middle names (John Hunter and Michael Chase). Hunter’s dad, John, passed away last year and sometime during the pregnancy, it came to Hunter that if we were to have a baby boy, he should be named after Hunter’s father. Rian is a combination of Mindy’s mom’s name, Rica, and Hunter’s mom’s name, Anna. Mindy's dad's name is Andy, so we can stretch it a bit and also say that the "An" stands for Andy as well as Anna. There; we managed to fit in all of Mindy's and Hunter's parents names in! If we had a baby girl, she was going to be named Alexa Rianna.
Rian is a pound heavier and 1/2 an inch taller than Chase was. Rian’s face has more of Mindy’s family’s features than Chase's face does. His round face is more like Mindy’s and his nose is more Filipino than Caucasian. Rian came into the world with black hair but it's already showing tints of brown. Rian has a lot of hair although it’s not quite as long as Chase’s was and it’s tamer than Chase’s wild, upstanding hairdo when Chase was born.
Chase is being a wonderful big brother and is very loving and gentle with his new baby brother!
Mindy actually seems to be recovering quicker than the last C-section episode and Hunter is already envisioning making new adventures with his two boys!
Mindy’s parents are again in town from San Diego since Thanksgiving week. They’ll be here until after Christmas sometime. Again, they have been such a huge, huge help!
Hunter’s mom, Anna, has moved to Denver from Colorado Springs since about 4 months ago. She has also been a wonderful, huge help to us!
To all our relatives and friends, thank you again for being there for us and for your love and generosity! We are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives!!!
(This page is dedicated to and in memory of our dear friend Shirley Foott, who passed away December 17, 2004. We so, so miss her being such a joyful, loving part of our lives!!!)
