Introducing the newest part of the family... Summer Rain Michael

I am blogging from the hospital this morning...  We have some beautiful flowers from some of our visitors.  The last three days have been a whirlwind on very, very little sleep.  Dawn and I might have had three hours of sleep in about three days.  

The reason... Summer Rain was born!

Summer Rain was born at 3:26 AM on Tuseday, June 10th, 2015.  We thought she was going to be a lot bigger, but weighed in at 7lb. 1 oz. and 20.5 inches long.  What a breath of fresh air to have her with us.

This is one of my favorite photos... Summer and Dawn were skin to skin for the first hour after delivery and Summer was very alert.  It melted my heart seeing Dawn and Summer looking at each other.  For those that do not know Dawn, she VIOLENTLY sneezes.  And they come from out of nowhere with no warning.  Dawn said that is how Summer will know mom and dad apart.  Well before Summer even started crying when she was born... Summer sneezed then started crying.  How fitting.

Yesterday we had family only come visit since Dawn and I were so delirious from lack of sleep.  My mother is now a grandmother and she was so excited.  Notice the hair!

And my grandparents came up from Cincinnati to see their first great granddaughter.

This morning, we are more alert and feeling better.  My Made Local, Stay Local story on the Honda Marysville Auto Plant aired on the morning show.  I was able to prove to Summer that I do work on TV.  She seemed skeptical until I showed her.  Dawn's mother has been staying since Sunday.  She was in the delivery room with us and has been keeping an eye on Buckeye.  Last night she took one of Summer's onesies home.  Buckeye kept smelling it for a long time then snuggled with it and laid his head down on it.  Feeling absolutely blessed the last few days.

This may be a little more than some would share, but it was a proud moment for me and changed the course of how we brought our little Summer Rain into the world.  It is a story that I never want to forget.  We only had one minor hiccup during the labor.  About 20 hours into labor, Dawn's heart rate was spiking, no one knows why it started doing it, but regardless... it was pretty scary because the alarm monitoring her vitals starting sounding like when you leave the keys in the ignition of your car and the door is open... Beep... Beep... Beep... There were a handful of other babies being delivered at the same time so our nurse had to leave to assist.  Every few seconds I would keep muting the alarm on the monitors in the room because it was causing more anxiety for Dawn and it was just a perpetual problem.  Dawn has always been somewhat of an anxious person, and for there to be alarms sounding... not good for the situation. Before the nurse had to leave the room, she started paging a few nurses to prep for a possible c-section.  Dawn went through a lot the 20 hours leading to that moment, with being induced, and a c-section was not what we had planned...  Luckily the contraction/heart rate monitor machine was still feeding data to charts and I was able to see that it was spiking during the time leading up to the contractions.  So Dawn's mom started asking trivia questions to distract Dawn and I had her take three deep breaths leading up to the contractions and that reduced the heart rate spikes.  Dawn's mom and I kept distracting her and I kept having her breathe deep.  The anxiety dropped and we got her back to normal... just in time for the nurse to come back.  High fives were going around.  So happy to be there and able to help her.  If we can avoid the prolonged recovery time... we are all for that! But the entire experience has been fantastic and the care of the nurses and doctors, amazing as well.

Anyway, I just thought I would share a few moments from the past few days.  I have had more emotions in the last few days that I have never really felt before.  Everyone says when you see your baby for the first time that there is no moment like that in the world.  And now I know what they mean.  I know I usually finish off my blogs with a weather forecast synopsis, but for the next couple weeks, I'm not a meteorologist... I will be a stay-at-home dad.  So my forecast is calling for: a Summer Rain.  See you all soon enough back on the TV, but looking forward to unplugging with some time at home with my ladies.  Have a good one!

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael