Carter Archie Crall

So, forget about that pregnancy timeline at the top of this page. It turns out the reason why Lorein was in too much pain to post last night was because SHE WAS IN LABOR! She had contractions a lot on Saturday, but they went away during the night. Then, they started up again before church on Sunday, but we just thought it was pre-labor. When we were timing the contractions Sunday afternoon, they averaged around 40 seconds. She never got to a minute. They intensified around 9 Sunday night and she couldn't sleep. At 2:20, she woke me up because she couldn't deal with the contractions by herself anymore. We again started timing, and again they averaged only 40 seconds or so. It had us really confused that the contractions weren't hitting a minute. That's what kept us believing it was just pre-labor. That, and the fact that the baby wasn't supposed to come for 3 1/2 more weeks! The contractions were coming so close together though -- about every two minutes -- that we finally decided to go to the hospital just to get it checked out. We really weren't expecting much. In fact, we left all our stuff in the car because we were sure they were just going to send us back home.
Lorein was really struggling to get into the hospital because the contractions were so bad, and then the nurse that was checking her in took her sweet time. She was probably the slowest person ever. And I really mean that. Lorein was lying there screaming and the nurse was only worried about buttoning her gown. She even told Lorein to stop screaming because she was going to need her energy for the long night ahead. Finally, a midwife came in, did an exam, and said, "This woman's ready to deliver. Get her to a room now." So, we threw Lorein on a gurney and motored toward the room. She was still having really bad contractions and while we were rolling, the midwife asked if Lorein was ready to push and she replied yes. We got her to the room and onto the delivery bed and the midwife said, "Ok, on this next contraction, push." Lorein pushed, and the top of the baby's head appeared. A few more pushes later, and baby popped out. We got to the hospital at 3:45 and the baby was born at 4:29. Yeah, less than 45 minutes. That means Lorein did the whole freakin' thing at home. She's insane. But like I said, we just couldn't figure out why the contractions weren't hitting a minute!
And that's how Carter (my middle name and my grandpa's name) Archie (after Archie Goodwin of Nero Wolfe fame) Crall (our last name) came into the world. He was 19 inches, and 6 lbs., 14 oz. He's been a great baby, although he does have these super-long Wolverine fingernails that he keeps scratching himself with.