I am a grandpa

So... we had a baby granddaughter yesterday. May the world now get to know the wonderfully amazing Anna Jane Feipel! She was born around 6:30 pm on Sunday, January 23 at Lutheran Hospital, weighing 8 lbs. and measuring 20 1/2 inches long.

The day started with a phone call at 1:15 am. It was Carrie informing us that her water had broke and they were heading to the hospital. I had a bit of a migraine headache, so I laid back down for a bit, but Jane immediately got up. We finally decided to just get ready and head up to the hospital. We arrived around 4 am, and Lauren and Erik were already there. Contractions were around 5 minutes apart at that time (and Carrie couldn't feel them at all). At 6 am Jane and I decided to grab some breakfast in the hospital cafeteria, then I headed for church about 7 am while Jane stayed at the hospital.

I went ahead and did the worship service, then headed back up to the hospital afterward, arriving around noon. Jane and I went and got something to eat, then we pretty much just waited around the rest of the afternoon.

Erik and Lauren stuck around the whole time, and son Isaac showed up in the early afternoon. Drew's mom and sister and nieces came in the afternoon too.

We watched the Bears/Packers game, and at halftime (4:30) Drew texted and said they were calling the doctor to start to 'push' things along. So we waited, and waited, and waited... and finally around 6:30 pm we got a phone pic of the lovely Anna Jane (they debated between Anna and Annabelle, but I think they officially decided on Anna).

That was all we knew for about an hour, and then Drew finally came out and told us everyone and everything was ok. He said they were just about to take Carrie for a c-section when she finally pushed her out ("they were going to give her one more push"). I guess they had to use the vacuum thing, so she had a bit of a conehead going on and some scraping on her head. I think Carrie was pushing for a good hour and a half anyway. Ugh.

At any rate, around 8:15 we finally got to go see her. What a sweety. I am pretty darn proud of my daughter and son-in-law. They did good work, and were quite the troopers the whole day. And what a lovely little lady (not to be confused with their dog Lady).

I was pretty worn out, and today I head for southeast Ohio for another 3-day Missional Leadership Initiative retreat. Not looking forward to the 4 1/2 hour drive, but I might as well go or else I'll just be bugging Carrie and Drew the entire time they're in the hospital. I had a headache almost the entire day yesterday (other than when I was in the room with Anna). But it was all worth it. Here are some pics. If you click on them they will get bigger.

Anna & Grandma

Anna & Grandpa

Anna & Uncle Isaac

Anna & her dad