The Future

Pictured above are Charlotte's future mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and husband...we're just working out the details on which boy is which ;)

This is one of my dearest friends, and one corner of the "Erin" triune that exists. Mrs. John Ussery has been an invaluable resource and friend, as have all of our friends during this special time. A special thanks to Erin C. for her support and presence during the marathon day of delivery! Love you, Soph!!

I really don't even know where to begin. Saying that I'm overwhelmed in a good way would be the understatment of the century, nay..........eon. People told me that I would experience new kinds of love with both my husband and child-------and they were right. I don't really know who has amazed me more this past week, Josh or Charlotte. I'll just say I feel like the most blessed gal in the world, nay.........universe.

She's Here!!! She's Here!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

After virtually 20 hours of labor, my beautiful wife gave birth to Charlotte Marie Hall at 11:40 pm on Saturday, January 19th, 2008. She weighed in at 7 lb. 8 oz. but 12 hours later actually weighed 7 lb. 14 oz., so we think she weighed around 8 lb. at birth due to a miscalculation because we were in a brand new wing with a scale that hadn't been used before. As biased as I am about my own child, I think she is so wonderfully beautiful (as you can tell from the pictures below). What a story to tell by the way! We left around 10:30 to come to the hospital, luckily before it started snowing like crazy. The snow didn't stick too bad to the roads, at least not in downtown Winston-Salem. BUT, when we got home 2 days later, snow was still covering a good portion of the ground. After Charlotte was born, it felt like forever before we were able to take her home. I guess we got a little cabin fever. After "the delivery" we moved to the old maternity wing, one of the boilers gave its last gasp thereby leaving some rooms without heat (including ours). It got down to about 60 degrees in our room, so Charlotte had to sleep in the nursery-------we were freezing but at least she wasn't. By the way, I can't stand the hospital's loud, reclining, pleather chair------horrible to sleep in----dreadful. Other than that, the hospital was great.


Monday finally comes and time to take our little bundle of joy home (yes that's cliche-ish but she really is). She has been great. Her first night here was a little difficult to get used to, but I have been going on straight adrenaline for like 3-4 days , so it didn't bother me. Erin might tell you differently though, I did sleep through an alarm for about 45 minutes that was right beside of me. Yeah, right afterwards I said I didn't hear it but an hour or two later, I definitely remember turning it off after I heard Erin say my name from the nursery. Since the first night, it seems like we have gotten on a pretty good schedule and any prayer for that would be appreciated.



One last thing, and then I'll post the pictures. We have only had this child for 4 days now, but it is really a lot of fun. I can't put into words how much fun fatherhood is. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.

Whaddaya Gonna Dew? (kwofee twalk voice, please)

So....Charlotte is um, nice and cozy still while the rest of us around town are dealing with snow!

That's right...we have one of the mildest winters ever?!?!?..and then the day she's due they are calling for snow/freezing rain/wintry mix for the next two days..awesome ;)

At least we'll have a more exciting story that originally planned! And maybe this will keep us from going 90 miles an hour on the way to the hospital, which was maybe a concern of mine up until this point.


It started snowing last night between 12:00 & 5:00, and here's what we awoke to see...
Not too bad, really...my only concern is the freezing temperatures and freezing wet stuff everywhere tonight. Snow..I like. Ice..I do not.

A crazy prediction from our doctor ;p

Well, I went to the ol' baby doc yesterday, and he informed me that I am 2 cm dialated and 50% effaced...which, as he predicted, means "we'll probably have a baby within the week"

:D I hope his "out on a limb" prediction holds true!! We're so ready to meet her!!

I'm officially massive...Josh and I went to C&H Cafeteria the other night, and as we were in line to pay, a little 3ish year old girl looked up from her dinner, caught sight of me, and gave a pretty good Joey Lawrence "whoa" complete with raised eyebrows and jaw dropped. Josh and I both busted out laughing. But it is all good and definitely worth every ounce of weight gain, which I'm sure is all water and no ice cream....er...yeah....

Now that I'm at home and have time to post, I have nothing to post about, so here's to random thoughts of a 40 week preggo brain (aka: who knows what will come out)...

-did the word "shocking" originate before electricity, thereby providing an exisiting description to the experience of being shocked, or did they make that word up post-electricity? (some people who shall not be named are still stumped by this one...mu hu ha ha ha)
-why would you name something a "whale shark"? Josh and I are watching Planet Earth, an incredible video documentary that is 5 DVDs long about God's wonderful creation which blows you away with every episode. Last night we were watching the "ocean deep" episode and I thought, how hard for kids to learn this stuff...is it a whale that looks like a shark, or a shark that's as big as a whale? The narrator, an entertaining Brit named David Attenborough, doesn't really explain this, but later we figured out it's the latter. Either way: why name something confusing like that?

Okay enough randomness for now..I've got to go eat! :D

SNB

Still No Baby :/

But, hopefully very soon we'll get to see this girl we've been waiting to meet!! Everything is ready, and I'm officially on maternity leave, so any time now...ya hear me, Charlotte!?

We have been trying to maintain a good balance of relaxing and cramming in fun activities: going to movies, going out to eat, trying to squeeze in those things we probably won't do as often in the upcoming weeks here :) So we've definitely maxed out that whole "this may be our last chance to....[ ] before Charlotte gets here, let's go!!" thing. I've been filling the [ ] with eating most of the time. Which is probably why Josh and I almost weigh the same...yeah. That is fun. Hey, it's probably just water weight, right? HAHA. No, seriously, Josh is getting an extra jewel in his crown for keeping his mouth shut about how much mine is open and having food put in it. What a sweet hubby. He is probably curled up in the bathroom sucking his thumb as I prowl around the kitchen going "lay off, I'm starving"...but oh well...it's all worth it :)

I promise we'll get some pictures up here as soon as we get home from the hospital...or as soon as is humanly possible...not sure my mom will want to take on blogging, but hopefully Josh can take a minute and upload some footage of the newest Hall.

Hope everyone is doing well!! Maybe next time I talk with some of y'all it will be on our way to the hospital... :D