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Since we’re fast approaching the unleashing of another Campbell upon this unsuspecting world, I thought I would post one of the crazier birth stories from our little ones so far. I wrote this soon after Alex, our now 4-yr-old was born. It’s quite a story! Enjoy!
PALMYRA, NY – Thursday, October 4th.
Greg & Jen return from a brisk walk through the lovely village of Palmyra on a beautiful fall day. Jen is somewhat tired (and really getting rather large…) 🙂 but can’t wait to go for another walk… a little later. 🙂 They get inside, listen to the phone messages, start getting lunch ready, and Greg heads back upstairs to the office to get back to the day’s work. A friend had called and left a message just wondering how we were doing, and if there were any signs of labor yet… a common call these days. But, alas, there were none yet.
Yet. 🙂
At 1:00pm (or so) on Thursday, October 4th, Jen started to notice signs of the baby coming. Nothing major, so it could be a false alarm… but did seem like more than that. She proceeds to nap. 🙂 Greg gets back to the office and continues work on arranging their early spring west coast tour. Lots of phone calls! 🙂 Also, making plans for that evening’s concert.
Around 3:00pm or so, Jen climbs the stairs again to where Greg is talking on the phone with a friend out west… and looks like something’s happening… 🙂 Greg asks, Jen replies it doesn’t seem serious. But, it was serious enough to call the Dr. and ask what we should do.
The doctor listens, asks questions, and then says, why don’t you come in tonight and I’ll check you out. We ask about the concert, should we come now, or later, and the doctor replies, “Oh, just go ahead and do your concert and then come on in. That will be fine.” So, surprised, but excited, we proceed with the plans and get ready to do the concert.
All the while, Jen is having stronger and more frequent contractions.
So, we set up (well, Greg does) and Greg begins the concert. By this time (6:00pm or so) it is quite obvious that this baby is coming tonight, so what does Jen do? She comes up on stage and joins in!!! Jen sang 3 or 4 songs that night… WHILE IN LABOR!!! 🙂 What a story to tell Alexander later in life! 🙂 Turned out to be a pretty nice turnout, met some neat people, and a bunch of people were there to help us tear down and get our stuff back to the house before we left for the hospital! Very interesting… 🙂
So, around 7:30-7:40pm we head to the hospital and arrive around 8:00pm. This baby is coming tonight! We make the appropriate calls and alert everyone to the immiment arrival of baby Campbell #2 and continue to be excited about this. This was our second baby – no problem! We knew what to expect, and knew it would just be great.
We forgot labor is very, very hard. 🙂
Jen proceeded through labor incredibly quickly (last time was a total of 17 hours, this time, around 8!) and after Jen’s Mom & Dad arrived late Thursday night… we had a SON!!!!! Alexander Caedon Campbell came into this world! It was as amazing as the first time, slightly different, but wonderful. The Dr.s and nurses were skilled at what they did and helped a slightly complicated situation with Alex and he was healthy and happy and great.
The hard part was that Jen kept bleeding for a while. Normal part of birth, but Jen lost more blood than normal. The doctors and nurses again worked hard and skillfully and finally were able to stop the bleeding and get things under control. That did manage to make Jen extremely weak, and sore… but thankfully still quite healthy. God is good!
Within a day or so we were all back to normal pregnancy recovery stages and Alex was doing great.
He was bigger than Ian (stayed in longer!) at 7 lbs 12oz. 20 inches long. But overall labor was much quicker! That was nice for Jen — we think 🙂
You may be wondering about his name…
Alexander is a name Jen has always wanted for a boy of hers. This was before she knew she would marry a Campbell. 🙂 We did not name him after the 19th/20th century Restoration Movement leader… though this Alex’s Grandpa also shares a name with one of those men, Thomas Campbell. 🙂
Then, we were trying to think of a middle name that had some significance, but didn’t want it to just be an english word that was just a word. So, we tried words in other languages we were familiar with. Finally came up with one we kind of liked – Queda. It’s the spanish word for “Remain, Stay” and reminded us of the Scripture in John 15 where Jesus talks about himself as “the vine” and we are “the branches” and that we need to remain in Him. The key verse might be John 15:4…
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you.”
We liked the imagery there, and wanted our child to remain in Jesus and Jesus to remain in him. So, Queda was cool… but just sounded like a spanish word. So, we played with it and ended up with “CAY-den”. Then we figured we’d go with a gaelic spelling, being somewhat Scottish, and we settled on “Caedon”.
Well – we arrived home to a big party with the whole extended Walker family Sunday afternoon, and then Alex got to see his first Bills game!!!! (Actually, it wasn’t so bad, though they did lose… but the back-up QB came in and was great. His name? ALEX Van Pelt! :-))
Everything is great here. Happy and healthy mom and baby (and dad and brother!) 🙂 Thanks for praying for that – God certainly delivered!
(pun intended…) 🙂