. She said fine...
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Okay..so, I need to actually start blogging on this thing
Welcome Graham Rylan Howe! You are born to be wild you little monkey man. Well, I will be posting some pictures of our new kid, but first I would like to comment on the experience.
Bethany began having contractions around 3am saturday. They were light, but we called the old midwife and she said just come on in. We arrived in columbus at Mt. Carmel St. Ann's (if you havent been there, please visit- even if its just to eat at Tim Horton's and act like your waiting for a relative to give birth) at around noon and Beth was at about 3cm. For those who don't know what that means, neither do I. They told her to "walk" the halls which actually meant "we are gonna hook you up to an i.v. and than make your husband push a large awkward telephone poll sized portable statue while you stroll through the halls looking like a celeb with an entourage". Needless to say, it did cause some progression in the labor process. We then got the word from the midwife that she would soon be in to break Bethany's water. They officially admitted her and at that point I relenquished my hopes at any chances of catching SNL.
This part of the story is called "Way too young and too hot doctor guy breaks water". Long story short the midwife couldn't make it for the water breaking ceremony so they sent Tom Cruise (pre scientology of course). After I beat him up in the parking lot for violating my lady, I returned to find that Beth was now enjoying what the veteran mom's would called "real contractions". She was 5cm dialted at this point and beginning to appreciate the fact that she had not only me there helping, but the grace of God help of her sister Brittany and sis in law Abi. We sort of had this interconnected, trinity of compassion. Everytime Beth began a contraction, we would simultaneously all do our parts without saying a word. We just knew. Brittany would place a cold cloth on her forehead, I would place a cold cloth on her back, and Abi would give mini 45-60 sec sermon/youcandoit inspirational speeches. We were on a different level people. It was a well oiled machine of contraction supression. And even if it wasn't, it was sure fun to yell out "I need more ice!" or "give me the scalpal!"
At around 7pm the placenta hit the fan and this shin dig began to pick up! Bethany was now at about 8cm, contractions were no longer easily thwarted off by our magical cooling powers and the midwife showed up to show us how its done. I gotta say this woman had skills. I thought Abi had empowering statements till I heard this chick. She was so in tune with Beth and how she was feeling that it was almost as if Beth were her Avatar. And I mean that. If you have a chance to work with a mid wife, they are a great investment. Her name was Liza and I am forever grateful for the work she did for my family. At one point I was so taken by her energy that even I started pushing! She told Beth "now this last part is what many women call the ring of fire, because it is very intense and only last for a few seconds, but you just push through it". I immediately thought of the Johhny Cash song and began to see the whole labor in a much more country-like rhythm, which was comforting.
The ring of fire began blazing and Beth was hitting notes I never knew she could sing. The baby's head began to poke out and the room started filling with a new emotion. It began filling with some sort of miraculous, supernatural presence where you knew you were a part of something ancient, something bigger than you. It was right about that time that I heard the midwife say "whoa, stop pushing for a moment Beth" The cord had wrapped its way around the baby's neck and needed attending to while it had slack in it. Within about 7 seconds, in a ninja like manner, the mid wife swooped around to her tool table and clamped the cord in like 3 spots and cut it away from the neck. Before I could say thank you for saving my son's life, the cord juice sprayed past all other spectators and directly into my eyes, mouth and nose. I think I yelled something like "somethings in my eyes! somethings in my EYES!!!" And needless to say a baby was 30 seconds from being born and no one cared. And with about 3 more pushes by my amazing wife, we welcomed Graham Rylan Howe into the world at 22:01 pm on 02/20/2010. I know, with a Jetson-style birthday like that, he should have come out of the vagina on a spaceship, but no worries, he didn't. There wasn't a dry eye in the room besides all the nurses and the midwife who have seen the things maybe a gazillion times. But for us, it felt like God let us in on something no one else had ever seen. And in my opinion, He did.
After all the fun post labor traditions like the passing of the placenta and the V-stich (a crowd favorite), we were instructed to take all of our stuff upstairs to the recovery room. Luckily we had some some help from our neighbors the Evans' clan and between them and us, we proceeded to make our way to level three of Beth vs the womb. We weren't allowed to carry Graham through the halls, we had to push him in a stroller, table like aparatus that was designed to make new dad's look like idiots while trying to make sense of what just happened in the delivery room, all the while trying to figure out how to push a 70 ton stroller through the halls of an unknown place to and even more unknown room on a completely different floor of the hospital. About 15 seconds after we all left the delivery room I looked up and saw a guy who looked like he had not slept in about 40 days. He looked familiar so I looked back to Beth, Abi and Brittany as they were psusing Beth in her wheelchair to see if they recognized him. They didn't, but as we got closer, I did. It was John Reuben (Christian rapper) which if the idea of Christian rapping wasn't weird enough, here was one of their leaders in my hospital heading to the room beside ours. So I simply said "John Reuben???" he said "Yeah....?" I said "I like your music..." he said "thanks man" than he looked down at Graham and said "congats man!" I than said "thanks dude..." And I never slowed down my baby train through the whole interaction. All the girls than said wait was that John Reuben the rapper? "Indeed it was ladies, indeed it was". Now, I have no clue why I saw a Christian rap artist minutes after my wife gave birth to our first born but I think it has something to do with Graham making alot of money someday, because if God were to give me a sign of wealth, it would be through the world of Christian hip-hop. Hey, we all gotta dream, right?
In all seriousness though, this event has changed me forever. Firstly, I think there is an eternal three cord bond now between Abi, Brittany and me because we saw things that night no man or woman should have to see and we survived. And also because I thought I had experienced "spirtual" things before this. But let me tell you, more than any Bible study, church group, worship song, great book, or even prayer time, I felt like this was the first thing I was ever apart of that was truly "Christian". What I mean by that is all those other things seem to be so tainted by us, by this world. And there in that hospital room, with my friends and family and my wife, we saw God. I can't describe it if you havent experienced having a child, but it is like Heaven opening up and saying "here you go, borrow him for a while". Graham was not tainted by this world, he was and is innnocent, in the same way we were when we entered this world. We all lose elements of that innocence along the way. I don't know why, but we do, and I think what was so beautiful about this experience for us was that for just one moment, just one brief moment in that delivery room we felt innocence again. We felt like we were close to someone who came from a home we left long ago, but we had forgetten about. Graham brought us home saturday night at 22:01pm and today we brougt him to ours. Thank you Jesus.
Bethany began having contractions around 3am saturday. They were light, but we called the old midwife and she said just come on in. We arrived in columbus at Mt. Carmel St. Ann's (if you havent been there, please visit- even if its just to eat at Tim Horton's and act like your waiting for a relative to give birth) at around noon and Beth was at about 3cm. For those who don't know what that means, neither do I. They told her to "walk" the halls which actually meant "we are gonna hook you up to an i.v. and than make your husband push a large awkward telephone poll sized portable statue while you stroll through the halls looking like a celeb with an entourage". Needless to say, it did cause some progression in the labor process. We then got the word from the midwife that she would soon be in to break Bethany's water. They officially admitted her and at that point I relenquished my hopes at any chances of catching SNL.
This part of the story is called "Way too young and too hot doctor guy breaks water". Long story short the midwife couldn't make it for the water breaking ceremony so they sent Tom Cruise (pre scientology of course). After I beat him up in the parking lot for violating my lady, I returned to find that Beth was now enjoying what the veteran mom's would called "real contractions". She was 5cm dialted at this point and beginning to appreciate the fact that she had not only me there helping, but the grace of God help of her sister Brittany and sis in law Abi. We sort of had this interconnected, trinity of compassion. Everytime Beth began a contraction, we would simultaneously all do our parts without saying a word. We just knew. Brittany would place a cold cloth on her forehead, I would place a cold cloth on her back, and Abi would give mini 45-60 sec sermon/youcandoit inspirational speeches. We were on a different level people. It was a well oiled machine of contraction supression. And even if it wasn't, it was sure fun to yell out "I need more ice!" or "give me the scalpal!"
At around 7pm the placenta hit the fan and this shin dig began to pick up! Bethany was now at about 8cm, contractions were no longer easily thwarted off by our magical cooling powers and the midwife showed up to show us how its done. I gotta say this woman had skills. I thought Abi had empowering statements till I heard this chick. She was so in tune with Beth and how she was feeling that it was almost as if Beth were her Avatar. And I mean that. If you have a chance to work with a mid wife, they are a great investment. Her name was Liza and I am forever grateful for the work she did for my family. At one point I was so taken by her energy that even I started pushing! She told Beth "now this last part is what many women call the ring of fire, because it is very intense and only last for a few seconds, but you just push through it". I immediately thought of the Johhny Cash song and began to see the whole labor in a much more country-like rhythm, which was comforting.
The ring of fire began blazing and Beth was hitting notes I never knew she could sing. The baby's head began to poke out and the room started filling with a new emotion. It began filling with some sort of miraculous, supernatural presence where you knew you were a part of something ancient, something bigger than you. It was right about that time that I heard the midwife say "whoa, stop pushing for a moment Beth" The cord had wrapped its way around the baby's neck and needed attending to while it had slack in it. Within about 7 seconds, in a ninja like manner, the mid wife swooped around to her tool table and clamped the cord in like 3 spots and cut it away from the neck. Before I could say thank you for saving my son's life, the cord juice sprayed past all other spectators and directly into my eyes, mouth and nose. I think I yelled something like "somethings in my eyes! somethings in my EYES!!!" And needless to say a baby was 30 seconds from being born and no one cared. And with about 3 more pushes by my amazing wife, we welcomed Graham Rylan Howe into the world at 22:01 pm on 02/20/2010. I know, with a Jetson-style birthday like that, he should have come out of the vagina on a spaceship, but no worries, he didn't. There wasn't a dry eye in the room besides all the nurses and the midwife who have seen the things maybe a gazillion times. But for us, it felt like God let us in on something no one else had ever seen. And in my opinion, He did.
After all the fun post labor traditions like the passing of the placenta and the V-stich (a crowd favorite), we were instructed to take all of our stuff upstairs to the recovery room. Luckily we had some some help from our neighbors the Evans' clan and between them and us, we proceeded to make our way to level three of Beth vs the womb. We weren't allowed to carry Graham through the halls, we had to push him in a stroller, table like aparatus that was designed to make new dad's look like idiots while trying to make sense of what just happened in the delivery room, all the while trying to figure out how to push a 70 ton stroller through the halls of an unknown place to and even more unknown room on a completely different floor of the hospital. About 15 seconds after we all left the delivery room I looked up and saw a guy who looked like he had not slept in about 40 days. He looked familiar so I looked back to Beth, Abi and Brittany as they were psusing Beth in her wheelchair to see if they recognized him. They didn't, but as we got closer, I did. It was John Reuben (Christian rapper) which if the idea of Christian rapping wasn't weird enough, here was one of their leaders in my hospital heading to the room beside ours. So I simply said "John Reuben???" he said "Yeah....?" I said "I like your music..." he said "thanks man" than he looked down at Graham and said "congats man!" I than said "thanks dude..." And I never slowed down my baby train through the whole interaction. All the girls than said wait was that John Reuben the rapper? "Indeed it was ladies, indeed it was". Now, I have no clue why I saw a Christian rap artist minutes after my wife gave birth to our first born but I think it has something to do with Graham making alot of money someday, because if God were to give me a sign of wealth, it would be through the world of Christian hip-hop. Hey, we all gotta dream, right?
In all seriousness though, this event has changed me forever. Firstly, I think there is an eternal three cord bond now between Abi, Brittany and me because we saw things that night no man or woman should have to see and we survived. And also because I thought I had experienced "spirtual" things before this. But let me tell you, more than any Bible study, church group, worship song, great book, or even prayer time, I felt like this was the first thing I was ever apart of that was truly "Christian". What I mean by that is all those other things seem to be so tainted by us, by this world. And there in that hospital room, with my friends and family and my wife, we saw God. I can't describe it if you havent experienced having a child, but it is like Heaven opening up and saying "here you go, borrow him for a while". Graham was not tainted by this world, he was and is innnocent, in the same way we were when we entered this world. We all lose elements of that innocence along the way. I don't know why, but we do, and I think what was so beautiful about this experience for us was that for just one moment, just one brief moment in that delivery room we felt innocence again. We felt like we were close to someone who came from a home we left long ago, but we had forgetten about. Graham brought us home saturday night at 22:01pm and today we brougt him to ours. Thank you Jesus.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Sugar House
We had an amazing time at our friends the Doan's. They were such a gracious family and the day we spent at their home was unforgettable. Everything from cow poop to syrup, 90 year old pacifists to 90 million kittens. It was quite a day.Quan and Chef Matt
We thought this picture would be a good start to this blog. Not for any other reason besides that I (the chef) loved this photo and deeply missed my assistant Quan. Vermont was amazing!
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