Jamen Dale Christensen

Once again, this post is way over due, but it has taken awhile to actually get to the blog. :)  Our precious boy was born on September 24th at 4:30 am.  He weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long.  I had my 39 week appointment on Thursday morning and that night, started having contractions.  They went from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart pretty fast.  Grandpa Christensen made a middle of the night drive to come stay with the girls while we went to the hospital.  We called him at 12:45 and by the time he got here, I was way ready to go to the hospital.  We took off immediately.  When we got to the hospital it was about 2:15 am.  I was dilated to a six when we got there and after many attempts to get my epidural in, I finally had some relief.  Once the epidural was in, I just had to wait for the doctor to break my water.  As soon as that was done, we had a baby.  He really came immediately after they broke my water. 

It is amazing to hear that first cry from your newborn baby! One time when crying is actually music to your ears.  Our baby cried for the first few minutes after he was born and then started having some trouble breathing.  They let me hold him for about 2 minutes and then took him to the nursery for observation.  They eventually had to give him an IV because his blood sugar levels dropped and they didn't want me to feed him while he was struggling to breathe.  They eventually took him for a chest X-ray and that was when Jared came back to tell me what was going on.  They decided there was a little amniotic fluid in his lungs, but he eventually worked it out and after about 4 hours, brought him to me.  He has been doing very well since.  He is a great baby and has amazing hair that we all love.

We had a very difficult time deciding on a name for him.  We had a few we were considering and thought once we saw him, we would know what to name him.  Then, it was forever before I could actually spend some time with him, so the day was half over before he had a name.  We finally decided on Jamen.  It means "right hand of God". Dale is Jared and his dad's middle name.

The girls are loving having "brother" here.  There is definitely vigilance on my part to keep him from being smothered (literally) with love.  We love you, Jamen and are glad you are a part of our family.

The girls meet their new brother

Our first photo as a family of 5

Going home from the hospital

Check out that hair!

Jamen (one week old) with all of his Christensen cousins that were born this summer.