I am now a stepaunt six times over!
Karen, my stepsister-in-law, gave birth to Emily Leah Kremer at about 11:30 this (ok, now technically yesterday) morning. The kid was 7 pounds, 8 ounces, healthy, and blinking curiously every time someone took a picture (approximately 58,000 times), so everybody’s happy.
Emily is going to be called Emma. Since Rob (my stepbrother) and Karen found out six months ago that they were going to have a girl, she was going to be called Emma. As my dad put it, “I don’t see why in the world they didn’t just name the kid Emma…”
The most entertaining part of the story, however, was the part about the actual delivery. Karen’s previous two labors (my two stepnephews, who are awesome kids) had both been close to a day long, so when she went into early stages of labor, she wasn’t concerned.
She wanted to wait until Jacob, her oldest, got back from Sunday school, and go drop him and Justin off at her parents’ house. Emma, however, would have absolutely none of this. They ended up having to call her parents to meet them at the hospital.
Rob had some sort of stomach ailment, and after handing the boys off to Karen’s parents, had to make a mad dash to the bathroom, and almost missed the birth of his daughter.
Karen was undergoing some very serious labor at this point, and they immediately told her DON’T PUSH and whisked her into the ER. Emma was born a grand total of seven minutes and two pushes after Karen entered the hospital, with Rob just barely making it.
My stepmom was terribly disappointed that she couldn’t be present for the birth of her sixth grandchild, as I think she had seen the other five. But they got there when Karen was still holding Emma, before they took her off to the nursery.
My dad said Karen looked and sounded considerably better than she had after Justin was born (Jacob was born before my dad and Ray Ann met), mostly because she hadn’t been doped up on painkillers yet still in significant pain and working for the better part of a day.
Despite Ray Ann’s disappointement about missing the birth, I think everyone was happy the kid came out so fast, yet didn’t come quite fast enough to be born on the freeway. Now that would have been a really entertaining story.
I’m sure when I tell my mom the seven minutes figure, she’ll regale me again about the “Twenty-three hours, a week and a half late” that I was, which she loves to do, especially when she decides that I’ve been an ungrateful child.
So yay, congratualations, and eventually I’ll have some pictures, hopefully some of the whole family to post up here…I don’t really have any good recent ones of Jacob and Justin, since all the pictures I have of Justin are from when he was 2 or 3 months old.
Number seven, by the way, is due sometime in May, when my stepbrother Doug and stepsister-in-law Trudy are due to have their first child. Then all of Ray Ann’s kids will be married with children (granted, the youngest is 11 years older than I).
Which, I have been forewarned, means the matchmaking powers of the Atlanta Jewish Community will be called forth to find someone for me as soon as Doug and Trudy stop having kids (Cindy, my stepsister, being done after three girls, and Rob presumably being done now).
God help me. Doug, Trudy? Please, please, please have lots and lots of kids.