Sarah and Jeff and Abe and Josie

We’re home. They let Sarah and Abe come home Sunday night, and I wanted to thank the staff at Flagstaff Medical Center. Every one we came across there was more than willing to do what it took to make sure Sarah was taken care of. Special thanks to Dr. Lindstrom, for making sure that, at the end of the day, both Sarah and Abe were happy and healthy.

That said, the last few days have been kind of like “The Zipper,” that carnival ride that spins your little car on one axis while the long arm it’s attached to is also spinning. It’s scary, really fast moving, and doesn’t give you much time to recover before it starts spinning again, but you forget that the whole time you’re safely belted to a bench inside a big steel cage. As professional as the hospital staff were, our little cage got spun a few times, and it hasn’t slowed much since we got home.

Yesterday we took Abe out to visit Dr. Seeman at Mountain View, for his first exam since leaving the hospital. He lost a bit more weight than we would have liked while in the hospital and we were a bit anxious to see whether he’d gained any weight. Three ounces, it turns out, which means he’s ours to keep! What the picture doesn’t show is the rock star performance he gave before the doctor arrived. We had to take his diaper off to be weighed, and as soon as it was off, he let loose with both guns, all over the exam table. Unphased, we wiped him off, moved him to a clean part of the table, and got ready to put a clean diaper on, when he opened fire again.

His favorite thing to do right now is to lightly soil a diaper, then, as soon as we have a clean one on, really let go. That’s why we’re filling the clothes line at least once per day.

The weather’s been great since Abe’s birthday blizzard, so we’ve been getting out for a few walks around the neighborhood. That’s Abe’s pimp ride, a Chariot CX1, courtesy of the Bike Trailer Shop. And that’s Abe doing his best ‘Blue Steel’. Mothers, keep an eye on your daughters. This means you, Olive.

Here’s a slightly longer video of some highlights from delivery to homecoming.

Jeff here. First, let me apologize for not getting this message out earlier. Considering there was nothing but insistent picture requests in my email, I’ll get straight to the point.

Sarah went into labor at about 9:00 on Thursday night, just after dinner with Bill and Jeralyn, who are visiting in anticipation. By about 9:00 Friday morning, after hours of pretty intense contractions, it was determined that baby wasn’t tolerating labor well. His (yep, it’s a boy!) heartrate was decelerating with each contraction, and given the stage of labor Sarah was in, Dr Lindstrom recommended an emergency c-section.

To make a long story short, at 9:56AM MST, weighing it at 8lbs 2oz, measuring 20″, Abraham Sawyer Hankens joined us in the operating room.

We’re headed home in just a few, so we’ll have some more pictures soon, to keep you all from sending any more threatening emails.

Today is my 1st day off of work. I’ll have 12 weeks off- more than I’ve had off since we moved to Flagstaff almost 8 years ago! I made it out of bed this morning to see Jeff off to work and now have a bit of last minute to-dos before my parents arrive.
The weather has been gorgeous and we’ve been getting outside as much as possible. This weekend we opted for warmer weather and headed to Sedona.

We “hiked” the Sedona Centennial Trail. I say “hiked” because it is a paved handicapped accessible trail that is only about 1 mile in length. Which is about all I am capable of at this point. I helped construct it my first summer in Sedona, so it was kind of fun to see it 6 years later. A neat thing with this trail is that it takes you over the old city landfill. Remnants of which are still very apparent in places.

But the local wildlife doesn’t seem to mind!

We also cleaned up our raised beds a little bit- it was great to see that the garlic we planted last fall has all come up. And amazingly enough most of our spinach survived the 80″ of snow and Flagstaff winter!