We are proud to announce that on Tue, Sept 28th, at 11:50am, Jeannette gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, 8lb 3oz, 19” baby girl named Kayley Jeannette Spencer.

Dropoff

The drama starts Monday….9pm, when Jenny starts to have contractions 10 mins apart. Around 2am they are 6min apart, and at 5min apart you’re supposed to go to the hospital. We pack up Lia (3 years old) and drive up to my folks house, wake up Lia, and explain to her what’s going on:

Dave: So you’re gonna sleep here at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and when you wake up you’ll have breakfast with them and Mammas going to the hospital to have the baby.
Lia: And after breakfast Grandpa will walk with me to the ocean?
Dave: Yes!
Lia: And Grandma will bake with me?
Dave: Yes!

So she was confortable there thankfully.

Hospital

Make it to the hospital around 4am and they only have one room free which we snag. It’s a full moon and a low pressure zone has moved into CA, and they say both cause pregnancies (er….deliveries) and the hospital was very crowded. [note: but others disagree].

Thru the early morning Jenny’s contractions get more frequent, except for one suprise period when they spread out to 45mins when she was asleep.

Sometime around 7 or 8am we get a great anesthesiologist who gives Jenny just the right dose, and she gets a dose of pottosin to induce labor. A bit later her doc breaks her water and you could hear it gushing out. She makes great progress and at 11, just as the pushing is about to begin, my sister Sheri shows up to help out.

Pushing

Jenny has to push when she has contractions, and when waiting for contractions she rests, as I joke around w/ Sheri, the doc, and the nurse and we keep the mood relatively jovial.

At one point the doc decides that when Jenny really gets, well, “angry” her pushes are more effective, so she’s told “Get Angry When You Push”. Another time it sounds like a military bootcamp kind of thing: “Do you want to have the baby? Well you have to push like you want to..push…push”.

Voilla, and hour later, just before noon, out pops a nice healthy little girl. She has a nice head of hair and looks like Lia did when she was born 3 years ago.

Recovery

The baby floor is crowded everywhere. We’re lucky to get a private recovery room. While some people don’t like visitors after having a baby, we were happy to visit as we were somewhat bored in our little room.

Jenny had been on a restricted diet during the pregnancy but she was able to, well, unrestrict her diet as soon as possble. Here she is eating Tamarind Raspberry Baby Back Ribs.

Stayed for 2 nites, and every afternoon I left the hospital to visit Lia at home, where Sheri was staying. I’d play a bit and have dinner w/ her, and then Lia would usually crash really early due to all the excitement.

Homecoming

We come home Thur afternoon to a nicely cleaned house, some signs on the front door welcoming the new baby, and Lia’s very ecstatic to see us. She has amazing dancing feet when she’s happy…

Epilogue

Within 5 minutes of Kayley being born, 500 miles away in San Francisco, one Jenny’s best friends, who she’s known forever, had a baby boy (Luke) at almost the exact same time that Jenny delivered!