Grant's Birth

Its 2:00am when Shawn is startled by a mysterious noise. Cautiously, he cracks one eyelid open in the direction of the sound, and groggily listens for any additional clue as to what woke him up.
“For the thousandth time, get up Shawn, I’m in labor,” Andrea pleads.
Adrenaline kicks in and the heaviness of sleep disappears as Shawn leaps from bed and dresses in mid-air. As his feet touch the ground the multi-tasking is already well under way. Calls are placed to the hospital and to a Relief Society President (who will watch Kinsley), the garbage is taken out, the house is cleaned, and the bags are packed all while trying to time how long between contractions and how long the contractions are.
And this is exactly how it happened…unless you ask Andrea.
[Andrea speaking] Let me just set a few things straight. First of all, I did a lot of preparation before hand, so that when the time came we did not have to run around crazy-like. I also prepared the house well in advance, Shawn said I was OCD (Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder) about keeping the house clean, but I just wanted to come home and have things in order. Lastly, Shawn sleeps so deeply that it is a miracle that I actually got him up. Anyway we arrived at the hospital shortly after 3:30am. I was in a lot of pain while on the drive there and shared with Shawn my fear that I might not be able to go “natural.” However, when the doctor checked me, I was dilated to an 8 [At this point an epidural would take effect after our baby’s birth]. Good thing I had a natural birth already in mind, because it was going to happen that way whether I liked it or not. My labor was only 3 1/2 hours from start to finish (a serious blessing!). The doctor was amazing and Shawn a fabulous couch, he cried a lot less this time around and was able to help me keep my focus (I'm sure he appreciated me sharing that with all of you!)Grant Stephen Sorensen was born April 20, 2007 at 5:22am. His birth weight was 8 lb. 2 oz. and he was 20.5 inches long. In the end we were blessed with a handsome baby boy and a really beautiful experience.

To view more photos of Grant Stephen visit our web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/thesorensenfam

DUE DATE...

What a beautiful day it is in Washington. The sun is out, the birds are out, the flowers are out, almost everything is out…except our little boy. He is definitely in.
This week we have gone on many walks at the mall, around the neighborhood, and up and down our stairs. We have even fed Andrea spicy food (the midwife suggested Thai food, but we opted for Mexican). Andrea did have 4 hours of contractions (as close as 5 minutes apart) on Saturday morning, but when she woke Shawn up at 4:30am, the contractions
subsided and as we have already let you know, no baby...yet.
The first picture was taken on Wednesday while we went on walk #47 for the week. We chose the scenic St. Andrew's Drive because Kinsley always requests to "see ocean water."
The second picture was taken yesterday. Enough said. We love you all and hope that you enjoy our postings....Love, Shawn, Andrea, Kinsley and the little boy as soon as he comes out.

Happy Easter (a week late)

We hope that you checked our blog last week and were completely let down that there wasn't a new posting. We had all the right intentions, and even started writing the post, but computer problems caused us to lose what we had worked so hard on to publish. After that, one thing led to another, and here we are a week after Easter, finally posting what should have been done last Sunday.
The weather on Easter started out beautifully, despite the predictions of wind and rain from our local weather man. The sunshine was brillant and the temperature warm, so we decided to walk to church. Three hours later when we embarked on our walk home, the clouds were a little gray but not to concerning. Within five minutes of being outside the wind began to howl and the "rains came tumbling down" (a line from one of Kinsley's favorite songs). It was a very soggy trip indeed! We had every intention of taking a cute family picture in our Easter best, but we thought we'd spare you the wet dog look we were graced with after battling the storm. So instead of a proper family portrait we have this little character shot of Kinsley from right before we left. She recently discovered her ability to make faces and has made it a favorite past-time.
We heard that a few of you (Shawns family) have been video conferencing. This something that we are very interested in and Shawn is currently looking for the camera cords to see if he can hook up the video camera to the computer so we can participate. And I am sure that y'all will be wanting to see our new baby boy when he shows up (which we hope is sooner than later). We promise out next posting will be all about our little Mr. Sorensen. Until then......