Karen spent the night of 30 December at the hospital. Above, Samuel and Michael were willing to hold still just long enough for this pose at their birth place, where their little brother will also show his face for the first time in February (pray that he waits until February!). Karen woke up that morning with her blood pressure steadily rising past 170/100, very high. The hospital admitted her for 24 hrs of monitoring and a full work-up of tests. Her blood pressure stabilized without medication and all tests would indicate that she and "petit-pois" are in good health. The spike in her blood-pressure is clear foreshadowing for what will certainly be a similar birth chapter to the ones we experienced with both Samuel and Michael. We were pleased Karen could come home with us yesterday to celebrate the dawn of a new year under God's grace.
I was also pleased that we are now much quicker to recognize the crisis signs and to react appropriately (Samuel was born by emergency c-section because we didn't understand what was happening to Karen). This premature visit to the hospital has served to mobilize the excellent team at the Hôpital Privé Armand Brillard on our behalf. Until the delivery, Karen and petit-pois will be monitored weekly by a specialized nurse who makes house calls. If all goes well, petit-pois will stay right where he is au chaud until his scheduled c-section sometime between the 20th and the 25th of February (38wks). However, if for whatever reason Karen should enter again into a pre-eclampsia crisis situation, it will be safe for mother and child to extract the baby as early as next week (32wks) -- when I'll be in California :(
Zboyz and I had fun on our birth test run. We went to a movie, ate junk food and played with the Wii we got for Christmas from my parents ... We also cleaned the entire house before Karen got home while blasting the White Stripes through every speaker, playing our best Jack White bloooz guitars on brooms, dust pans, and vacuum cleaners. The year 2007 ends our escapades as les trois garçons. In 2008, the French Finleys will count four boyz. Sami and Mikey are already dreaming about all we will be able to do together as les quatre garçons. They didn't like my suggestion that they learn to change their little brother's poopy pants.
Pray that I will model for my boys what it means to be a man who trusts the well-being of his family to the goodness, sovereignty and power of the only living God...recognizing my own frailty when faced with circumstances well beyond my control.
Peace be with you for the new year.
