It has been an incredibly busy six months, and I haven’t posted a single item about us, the baby, or anything.

The last few months of Jennie’s pregnancy were trying for her. She suffered from sciatica for a few weeks, which she managed to get through thanks to physical therapy. Luckily, nothing was wrong with the baby through all of it.

Sabrina Michelle Patten was born on May 12, 2004, at 8:06PM MDT. She weighed 6 lbs. 12 oz. at birth and was 19 inches long. She is the most beautiful baby girl on the planet, and I’m not at all biased (I swear!).

Jennie was in labor with her for all of 4 hours and 6 minutes. She called me at work at 4:00 when her first contraction happened. By the time I got home at 4:25, she was about 5 minutes apart. We got to the hospital about 5:30, and Jennie was in tremendous pain, with her contractions coming less than 3 minutes apart. The nurse put in the orders for an epidural, but when Jennie’s OB came by on rounds, she said we were ready to go. Jennie was in a bit of a panic – “Am I still getting an epidural?” she asked, to which the nurse replied, “No, honey, you’re getting a baby!”

Sabrina was completely healthy at birth, and was a very calm, sleepy newborn. However, the first few weeks we were concerned because she wasn’t gaining weight very well. In fact, it wasn’t until she was three weeks old that she was back to her birth weight (most babies lose about 5% of their birth weight by the time they leave the hospital – Sabrina lost 14 ounces, or 13%). It turns out she has Infant Reflux Disease, and she is now on Baby Zantac. Her weight is improving steadily now, and we are very pleased. She will be eight weeks old tomorrow. She has gained to about 9 lbs. or so, and actually fits her newborn outfits now. She doesn’t sleep as well as she used to – we’re worried she may have developed colic. We’ll have to see.

I’m sorry we didn’t post anything on the baby website. It seemed like such a good idea at first, but Jennie has been exhausted before and since Sabrina was born, and things are really busy for me at work. Plus having to change hosting companies was a pain, and getting things back working was such a hassle that I didn’t have time to write. We’ll see how things go from here, but no promises.