A.M. Matthew Alexander Pachev was born this morning at 7:49 AM at our home. Sarah had the first contraction of significance at 4:30 AM. So it was a relatively fast labor. Everything was normal up until she started pushing him out. With just a little bit left to go we had a little scare - our midwife Cathy and her helper were not picking up the heart beat on their monitor. So they gave Sarah the oxygen and told her to push as hard as she could as she coached her through it. I got to witness the zeal of a tiger mother when the feels the life of her baby is in danger. Matthew soon came out, and with a little bit of help started breathing normally. Later Cathy told us about a delivery she was a part of where they could not register the heart beat for 45 minutes. This one required a transport to the hospital, but it all ended well - the baby came out healthy. Cathy has a great record - out of more than 1,000 home deliveries with all kinds of unexpected turns all of them resulted in live birth, and very few required hospital transport. After watching her tackle this problem today I have to say this is not just luck.
Matthew was 20.25 inches tall and weighed 7 lb. Two minutes after his birth Sarah's phone started playing Called To Serve. This is her default ringtone which helps her not get annoyed when the phone rings at a bad time. This time, however, Called To Serve had a different meaning. It was her running partner Shelly calling to see if she could take the kids.
Benjamin, Jenny and Julia took care of Joseph, Jacob, William and Stephen in the meantime. They were so organized that we never even knew they were in the house. Once we were ready for them, we invited them in to see their new brother. Afterwards Benjamin took his siblings on their runs while I stayed with Sarah to make sure she was OK. He did 7 miles himself, Jenny did 3, Julia 2, Joseph 2, Jacob 1, William 0.5. Benjamin even ran a little bit with Stephen. Then Benjamin and I traded places. He stayed with his mother to make sure was was OK while I ran 8 miles. The road conditions were very difficult today. It took me 1:06:04 to run 8 miles. On the positive side, I scored zero falls which is better than the last few runs. This run put my current pair of Crocs over 2000 miles.
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