Trey and I woke up at 4am in order to be at the hospital for my induction at 5am. Because you need to know important details, I will report that I had a whole wheat bagel with crunchy peanut butter topped with sliced bananas and sprinkled lightly with cinnamon and sugar. This is the breakfast of champions and certainly an excellent precursor to an awesome labor and delivery. When we arrived at Huguley, they wasted no time getting things started. Trey and I attempted to play monopoly, but once the contractions became pretty regular, I was not too interested in continuing (that and the fact that I was already losing badly ten minutes into the game). Later in the morning my mother-in-law and my sister, Kelli (aka my doula) arrived. When I was induced with Owen Ray, his labor lasted about 12 hours. I expected Chandler's to be a bit quicker, but not by much. I was wrong. It was by much. At 11:00am the nurse came in to check how I was progressing. Apparently I had zipped right from a 5 1/2 to a 9 in no time. She said "we're going to have this baby" and called in the doctor immediately. I was pretty elated because inducing labor produces some pretty unnaturally painful contractions and my epidural was only about 65% effective. When I had an epidural with Owen Ray I had what is called a "hot spot" over my left hip. It was about the size of a quarter and that little circle could feel the contractions that the rest of my body was numb to. With Chandler, the epidural did not take for most of the left side of my body. It seems that much as we try, no one escapes Genesis 3:16. All that to say, the fact that my nurse was announcing that Chandler would make his debut in about half the labor time as his brother was just fine and dandy with me. I pushed through a grand total of four contractions and voila, Baby Boy #2 arrived. Shocker: the child had dark hair and dark eyebrows. Having no other reference point for what my husband and my genetic combination produce other than our first child, I was startled to meet this dark haired little bandit who did not have bright whitish blonde hair like Owen Ray. I didn't hold it against him, however, because he was (and is) the most handsome little brown haired baby boy I could ever imagine. After a week, I can conclude that he is practically perfect in every way and marvel at God's lavish grace that He would entrust me with another little life to be responsible for.
Addendum: Owen Ray met his baby brother shortly after. In the sweetest big brother voice he said "Hello Baby Chandler" like he'd been waiting to greet him all along and welcome him into our family.
