Wow... What a ride!

On Tuesday, July 14th, I got a call at about 1:15PM from my mother.  For the past month, I was told that my mother was going to call me right after she hears that Jina's going into labor.  When I received that call, my first question as soon as I answered was, "Is this THE call?!" She laughed and kindly replied, "Yes." Then I felt a rush right up my back as I got all excited that my sister was in labor.

Of course, I didn't rush to the hospital immediately as I wanted to... I was in a meeting with the Burlington Free Press showing a video with the staff about the United Nations project:  Electronic Game to End Violence against Women.  After that, I got pulled in to another interview with a radio show talking about another game we've been working on for kids with Cystic Fibrosis.  And RIGHT after that, I was following up with students about other important projects at the EMC.  3 to 4 hours later of perpetual feeling to run over to the hospital, with every minute feeling longer than necessary, I finally got picked up by Corinn and we head over to Burger King to get poor Nate his 5:30PM lunch.

When we finally arrived, many of us were waiting in the room anticipating more, positive news.  Nate was a trooper and gave us updates almost every half hour!  He was totally cool and calm.  Armed with so much medical information and labor knowledge, we were impressed!  I felt he was missing his doctor's white coat with clipboard!

"Hello, I'm Dr. Couture at your service...!"

As anticipation grew amongst the crowd, so did Jina's contractions.  At one point... she went through a contraction that lasted 1 1/2 hours!!!  I have NO idea what that would be like and am not aware of any other woman who had to endure that much stress and physical activity before!  Despite this, things seemed to go smoothly.  By 12AM the next morning, Corinn, My mom, Nate's Mom, Beth and Michelle (Jina's friends), and I were the half left waiting.  Nate came in and informed us that we should probably leave as the doctors were predicting a 7AM birth.  All of us were stubborn and wanted to stay to represent our support for both of them.

"Where's the baby?!?!"

When 2:30PM just about rolled around, Beth was finally tired and decided to leave, and since we did not seen Nate for about 2 1/2 hours, she decided to call the Nurse and ask if she could get an update as she was about to leave.  When the Nurse came back, she said, "The soon to be Father said, 'Hold on a little longer...'" We all looked at eachother and the lack of sleep immediately left our eyes.  We were so excited and waited until Nate came to open the door for the last time to let us into the room where Jina and the little one staid. 

"Common guys... Come and see the work that Jina and I did!"

Because I was asked to keep photos off of the web, especially our blog, for their privacy, I unfortunately cannot share all the photos that I wanted... But thought that I'd at least let one slip through for your viewing pleasure:

Thank you Jina and Nate for allowing us to participate in this very special moment and we look forward to spoiling Anastasia rotten.