Ann Marie

Well, my policy on journals and blogs has always been that you shouldn't try to catch up.  Just write/blog about what's happening now, and let the rest go.  So you'll have to trust me that we had a great Thanksgiving, a great Christmas, and great New Years.  Oh, and my brother left on his mission - and he's flying to Hungary TODAY!!!  Go Tom!
But it does seem wrong to just skip over the birth of my seventh child, so I'll bend my rule just this once. ;)
The Dr. was perfectly willing to start my labor for me.  In fact, because my last delivery went so fast (about 20 minutes), he made sure I was willing to be started at 39 weeks before he even took out my IUD.  I assured him that was fine with me, he took it out, and a couple weeks later we were expecting!  Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to happen quite that fast, and it put us in a quandary about the delivery day. See, I would arrive at 39 weeks on Nov 28th.  But we already have a birthday on that day.  There's another birthday on the 30th.  (Not sure why we're so fond of the end of November.)  We could have just waited until a couple days into December, but Tom was going into the MTC on the 30th, and it seemed a shame to make him wait two years before seeing the baby.  So that left us with the 29th.  I wasn't ecstatic about the idea of celebrating birthdays three days in a row every year, but neither Jef nor the Dr. saw any problem with it.  (Men!)
So the baby was scheduled to arrive on the 29th.  Skip past a couple months of morning sickness, several months of feeling not-too-bad, and a couple months of constant discomfort, and we arrive at the delivery day!  Crazy to say, but I was quite nervous.  Not nervous for the delivery.  Been there, done that.  But the last time I was in the hospital, I ended up losing all my hair and several months of my life.  It took quite a while to get back into my life again, and I was just not excited about starting over again.  I realize it was completely illogical to be afraid that would happen.  I would be home within a day or two, and other than being tired and sore, I would be fine and life would continue on as normal. (Or, rather, normal plus a baby.)  But as the time drew nearer, I kept catching myself preparing my house for several weeks of my absence.  Kept telling myself that wasn't necessary, but sometimes self just doesn't listen.  So I arrived at the day basically scared to death for no good reason at all. (I don't remember being scared at all to go into brain surgery, but this wouldn't be the first time I didn't make any sense.)
Each time I have a child, I manage to cut my delivery time in half.  I started out at 9 hours with the first one, then 4, then 2, then 1, and so on, til I got it down to 20 minutes.  (No, it doesn't actually work out mathematically, but you get the idea.)  So I was thinking this time it would take around 10 minutes.  Sounds good, right?  But, of course, just when you think you have life figured out, it sends you a curve ball.  This child was posterior, and required not ten minutes, but three hours of delivery time.  Three hours?  Seemed like forever.  I know, I know, it's not really that long, but in comparison...  Plus I had to do some real pushing.  Real pushing?  I hadn't had to do that for the last several children.  I had graduated past all that nonsense!  But I pushed anyway, and she eventually made her entrance.  Now, we hadn't found out the gender of this child beforehand, but I was really really really really really really really really hoping for a boy.  Really.  So when she came out a girl...   Well, I was a little dismayed.  It didn't last long, though.  How can you hold a newborn infant and not fall in love immediately? 

We didn't have a name (because she was supposed to be a boy.)  So it was almost 24 hours before she had a name of her own.  Jef wanted to name her Carianne (not sure how we would've spelled it) but I didn't think she looked like a Carianne. (Caryann? Carrie-Ann?)  I didn't have any ideas of my own, though, so we were at an impasse.  (If she would have been a boy, I would've had LOTS of suggestions.)  So finally my parents came to visit us in the hospital, and they came up with Ann Marie. (Like the little girl on All Dogs Go to Heaven) (Even though I don't even like that movie.  But the little girl is cute.)  I wasn't so sure, since Ann Anderson sounds like you're stuttering.  But Ann-Marie Anderson doesn't sound too bad.  And we could call her Annie for short.  That clinched it for me. I've always wanted an Annie.  I was still not sure that Annie Anderson didn't sound silly, but everyone assured me it didn't, so we did it.  I still cringe when anyone calls her Ann.  Not that I don't like the name, I just don't want it to stick and have her end up as Ann Anderson.  She would hate us!  She'd end up getting married at 15 just to have a last name that doesn't start with An.  And yes, we could have named her Carianne and still called her Annie.  sigh.
But she's here, she's named, I didn't have to lose months of my life, and everyone is doing great.