SHE'S HERE!!!!

Finally the long awaited day, our "little" Amber Shirley Knapp arrived this evening a little after 7 pm, after much laboring. Drea started having some pretty good contractions last night and we began timing them. There was really nothing consistent, but she said they were strong. At about midnight we headed downstairs to play a little wii, which btw, i love! Then all of a sudden we started getting regular contractions about 5 min apart. She soon had a REAL contraction and that was really something else to watch. I have never been on the other side of labor, you feel so helpless, I kind of feel bad for the men now. That is a difficult position to be in. She rated her contractions by color, green - easy, yellow - med, and Red - Strong!. She was having a lot of back labor as well and was having quite the time of it. The best part of the whole night of laboring was when she started to have real contractions, the ones where you are in so much pain you don't even know there is anyone around you. This first one caught her by surprise, she started leaning on different pieces of furniture, and the floor trying to find a position that would take away the pain. I had to giggle a little as I watched her basically roll around the basement in search of relief. After it began to die down, I said "I take it that was a red?" and she she replied between breaths, "I think we're going to need a new color!" :-) I laughed so hard. She was such a trooper, she was really tired though, so I told her to go and try to rest and if she can't sleep to come and get me and I would keep her company in the night. She tried to sleep for over an hour, but every time she would fall asleep a contraction would wake her up. She finally ended up back in my room at about 4 am saying "um, Christie, they really hurt." We got up and started 13 going on 30, as we timed contractions. By 6:30 they took a crazy turn and started coming exactly 3 min apart. We woke the sleepy hubby and sent them out the door. At 6:15pm (about 11 hrs after their arrival at the hospital) it was determined that the baby was face up, really big and her body was not going to get to a 10 anytime soon. They took her in and did a section. Baby Amber's head is all cone shaped and bruised from trying to squeeze down the birth canal. Her face is all red, and she looked rather traumatised. Despite all this she is as cute as a button and sweet as sugar. She has quite the little latch and does not have red hair! She has the chubbiest little cheeks. I plan to head over to the hospital tomorrow evening to take pictures if I can find a sitter. I will return home on Wednesday.

As for me, I am so happy that I got to meet her and hold her and I could stay forever and rock her. Today while they were in the hospital I had the wonderful blessing of getting together with my sweet friend Lara. Lara is one of those people who you meet and think, I want to be like her. She is the softest, sweetest, most beautiful lady (inside and out). When her husband got word that I was in town, he took the afternoon off work, and babysat my kids and theirs so that Lara and I could go out to lunch and do what ever we wanted to do. (WHAT A GUY EH??) Lara is a kindred spirit, not in the sense that we have so much in common, I truly feel like Lara and I had a dear friendship in the preexistence. I don't throw this around like anything, rarely do I feel this bond, but Lara is one of those people. We had the most wonderful afternoon, we went out to Cafe Reo (EAT YOUR HEART OUT!!) and then went to fashion place mall and got pedicures and sat in their massage chairs extra long! It was so wonderful. We did a little shopping around as we walked to the nail place and back, so it was a real blast! We talked and talked and she always enlightens me and helps me to see things more clearly. We couldn't take too much advantage of her sweet husband so after about 4 and a half hours we went back to find all alive and well, and SUPER MAN (that's Matt) had even changed Katie's poopy diaper. There were so many tears and hugs at our parting, and as I drove away from her and looked at her in my rear view mirror, I just bawled. It has been 2 1/2 years since our last visit, and that is FAR too long! I don't want to wait that long again! I then drove out to Bountiful to meet with my rockin sister in law Jo, at the McD's we got the kids their delicious, nutritious food, and then talked while they played. After dinner we headed back to their home where Brad (Brent's little brother) took all 5 kiddos and put them to bed while Jo and I went up to see the baby. We got their in time to see her move from Labor and Delivery to Maternity, and to watch and take pics of the first bath. I got to stick around long enough, that I helped Jeffery change a poopy diaper :-), and what I have looked forward to the most, I got to sit with Drea, and help her nurse, like her mom did for me. I can't tell you what it means to me to be able to help her learn such an amazing thing. Little Amber actually weighed in at 9lbs 6 oz, quite the chunk o rama. Pics to come. :-) Well one more day to visit the grave, play with cousins, photograph that curly new baby, and sit with my little Drea once more. I return home Wednesday to releave my two wonderful sweet fantastic friends from the duty of keeping my eldest 2 in line. ;-) Thank you again Jeri and Christina.