Julian slides into home plate. Safe!

On Thursday, January 28, our daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Andrew, delivered our second grandchild, and little brother to their three-year-old, Henry. Jackie and I spent most of the month on the East coast, awaiting the pending arrival. Expected due date had been January 18th, so it was a long month. Here's the story.

Sarah and Andrew were planning on using a "Birthing Center" connected with a local hospital in Beverly, MA (where they live). Sarah called us at 6am and said "I think this is the day...can you come by about 7 or 7:30 to pick up Henry?" I said fine. In about five minutes, Andrew called back saying come as quickly as you can. I told him I was already standing there in my coat with a cup of coffee in hand, just waiting for Jackie to finish getting ready. We left quickly and turned a normal half hour drive into about 20 minutes (without getting arrested).

We called Andrew a couple of times along the way, so they could get themselves ready to head for the hospital, and I assumed that when we pulled up in front of their house, that they'd be getting into their car. However, we found an apparently very (ridiculously) relaxed Andrew, still in his pajamas, preoccupied with making toast for Henry. He greeted us like "no worries, all is well, stay as long as you want before taking off with Henry.."

After a few more minutes of toast monitoring, Andrew went upstairs and came back down rather quickly, still in his PJ’s, and said “maybe it would be good if you took off now”. So we got Henry into his jacket, and put him in the carseat and took off for some breakfast and other planned adventures. While we were leaving, Andrew was on the phone informing the Birth Center that they were on their way and he was also calling the Midwife, telling her that they were getting close…

Because Sarah’s labor with Henry had been quite long (like 32 hours), she and Andrew (and us) all expected a long day. However, shortly after we had finished breakfast at the restaurant, we got a call saying Julian had been born.

The rest of the story is that Sarah gave birth to Julian at home, and unassisted! No exaggeration.

While we were downstairs, watching Andrew prepare toast, Sarah was upstairs in deep labor, with the baby rounding third and heading for home. When Andrew went upstairs (after the toast preparation), Sarah told him that the baby's head was crowning and to go make the calls and get to the Hospital. (That’s when he told us to scram..).

When he made the calls, the Midwife suggested that Andrew call 9-1-1 and request an ambulance. We only saw Andrew on the phone as we left, unaware until later that he was dialing 9-1-1. Had we known that, we probably wouldn't have been capable of prying ourselves away.

So…we took off with Henry, happy grandparents off on an adventure with their (for the moment) only grandchild.

Andrew goes back upstairs to see how Sarah is doing, and she is holding Julian in her arms and starting to nurse him. Andrew was rightfully blown away…and within seconds, he hears a fire truck pull up (followed in short order by the ambulance he'd expected). The firemen carried Sarah and Julian down to the ambulance, and the ambulance took mother and baby to the hospital for assessment, paperwork, etc. All was well, mother and baby quite healthy, if not a bit tired.

Turns out that the “calm Andrew making toast for Henry” was not quite the disconnect that I had interpreted. Henry had seen Sarah in deep labor and kind of freaked out. Andrew was trying to calm him down and make him think things were routine and there was nothing to worry about….

Anyway, interesting and memorable day for all concerned.