Stinkin-Lincoln!

We would like to officially announce the new arrival of Lincoln Robert Swenson. He was born March 24th 2008 at 2:56pm at a husband-blaming 9lbs 2oz! The day before was Easter and just like every other day. We got up and while we were getting ready for church in the morning Abbie thought her water broke but it wasn't how we always heard it would be, there was only about a cup full of liquid on the kitchen floor over which she was standing (let me know if this is TMI for ya:) and it wasn't watery per se but more of an egg-white consistency. She didn't want to believe that her water broke so she proceeded to get ready for church-- silly Abbie ;) We had been instructed by our mid-wife that when the water breaks give it till 1-4-1... your contractions should be for one minute every four minutes for an hour. So we weren't rushing to the hospital because she wasn't feeling anything resembling a contraction. So the day goes on as normal and then we get together with Jake's family for Easter dinner. While there Jake is able to convince Abbie to finally call their mid-wife and just see what she says about the spillage earlier that morning. She said to go in and have it checked to see if it was amniotic or not. So we went and while the nurse was asking Abbie if she had a sample she could test; as if by asking this question she was using the strongest powers of suggestion, her water broke sitting there on the bed! (Abbie's not the nurses') Well nothing else happened that night and in the morning they started a pitocin drip because her body wasn't going into labor by itself and after 15 hours of her water breaking they wanted to get things moving before infection and stuff had the chance to set in. So around 1 o'clock she started to push and two painless hours later little baby Link was born! (just kidding-- she says it hurt like crazy-- but she sure didn't let on that it did! She just pushed and pushed and finally at the last two pushes she finally said a little whimpery *ouch*) Abbie champed all the way through it with no epidural and no drugs whatsoever! Jake told her that after seeing how strong she really was she could start killing her own spiders, mowing the lawn, changing the oil and all of the other stuff that she wouldn't do before. Link is perfect! (literally...at this stage his little poops don't smell and we've always heard that that is the one stipulation for perfection)

Just over 11.5lbs now at 5 weeks old he is one healthy kid! He eats well and sleeps for 4-5 hours at a time at night. We will probably be eating crow by saying this but so far we couldn't have asked for a better baby! Sure he has his fussy times but usually it's just cuz he's poopy or something and daddy hasn't paid much attention to that Baby Whisperer book obviously or he would be able to distinguish his poopy-cry from his ive-got-a-bubble-cry-- Daddy will learn soon enough. It's when the poopy-cry is intermingled with the hungry-cry and bubble-cry when things get really exciting! He sure does want to let us know everything he is feeling... :) I'm sure well have plenty more updates and we're sorry this one made it out so late-- kind of been busy.

Check out our online album to see more shots of Link! http://picasaweb.google.com/home?hl=en&tab=wq