Family of Five!

Henry Lee Broyles was born November 11, 2011. That is 11/1/11, at 3:33 p.m. at Ransom Memorial Hospital in Ottawa, Kansas. He was 8 lbs. and 20 inches long. Henry is not a family name, but Lee is a middle name shared by both my mom and Mare's dad, although my mother spells it Lea.

Since Leo was born RMH has completely renovated their birthing rooms and they are warm (as in inviting, not necessarily as in temperature, but they are that kind of warm, too of course, it just seemed like a given that a hospital would keep their rooms heated and therefore unnecessary to mention, but then I went and used a confusing adjective like "warm" which required this lengthy disclaimer and required far more thought and typing than simply describing the room as inviting, but then I'm a poet and writer at heart and use words like warm in place of inviting because they invoke a bigger emotional reaction  in the reader, so what can you do?) and feature big windows for gazing out of and quite a bit of space for the happy couple (in this case, me and Mare) and the attending physicians and nurses and all the other people with specialized careers which peek in and poke and prod and measure on the mommy immediately prior to birth. The room was supplied with one of those easy chairs that convert into a cot or sleeping surface, on which I slept overnight.

The delivery itself went fine. Mare was vocal to her doctor and the nurses and to virtually anyone who would be involved in the delivery that she wanted the pain management anesthesia started early on enough that she would benefit from it during delivery; unlike the previous two births where the anesthesia arrived to ease her pain just after the delivery, therefore not doing her much good. Mare was a champ and confirmed my opinion that she is from good German farming stock whose body is made for mothering.

Henry came out perfect without any blemishes and soon his sallow, purple skin color changed to a healthy pink and wasn't very long at all until he began exercising his lungs. Henry doesn't have any birthmarks to be found, and he was born with a good head of hair.

I enjoyed taking off work for 8 school days to be home and help out with Jack and Leo in order to provide mom and Henry time together for bonding and rest from the traumatic experience of birth. We three boys played and I delivered Jack to preschool and Leo to the library for story time. We made campfires and walked around the block and rode our bikes to the park and prepared breakfast, lunch, and supper, read books, brushed teeth, combed hair and just generally enjoyed each others company for those days. Everyone should be as fortunate as me to enjoy all this time off work to spend time with family. It is irreplaceable. If time is our most precious commodity, we should be spending our time wisely; namely, with our families.

Henry does not sleep through the night, of course. But, he is slowly improving already. Mare works her little tail off (bless her heart!) Now she's outnumbered by four, and we both are outnumbered by three. We love Henry, of course, and he's a welcome addition to our family. He's healthy, and mom is healthy and the brothers love him.

We're rich and life is good!