The Newest Arrival!!! (This post takes precendence over any Christmas post)

GAVIN THOMAS DIXON
Born December 28, 2007 3:30am
6 lb. 10 oz. 19 inches long

Wonder woman has done it again. Not only did she entirely clean her whole house the night before she goes into labor, but then she decides that she's gonna push that baby out so quick that she won't wait for an epidural to work. Ok, so maybe that wasn't exactly her decision but yes, she delivered number 4 al natural ladies.
So here's the story as I remember it...check Shannon's blog in a month when she has time with 4 children to actually make a blog entry about it.

Andrew was working late until 11:30 and Shannon had been cleaning the house and didnt' finish until 12:30am. She got into bed and then thought. If I go into labor I don't want my hair looking like this! (She had washed and dried it but not flat ironed and if you know Shannon's hair, she likes to calm it down with a flat iron. So she gets back out of bed, flat iron's her hair (I love it :) ) and gets back in bed. But just as she falls into sleep, she is woken up by....Dun Dun Dun back labor. THE WORST KIND! So then she gets back out of bed and frantically starts packing.

Dan and I had a game night with old friends in San Diego so we decided to put our kids to bed at his mom's house in Carmel Valley and then spend the night there afterwards. We got back to his mom's at 1am and Dan fell asleep on the couch while his mom and I chatted until 2am. I knew I would be hating myself the next morning for that one. So I start to head upstairs to bed when I hear a phone sound like a text message beep. I thought it was my phone but I was too tired to check. 3 minutes later after I'm in bed, Kari, Shannon's mom, comes upstairs and says that Shannon is in labor and is on her way to the hospital and that she was leaving to drive up there. I fell asleep before I could complete my thought process of her needing someone to watch her kids. So Shannon frantically calls people trying to get someone to come over to the house to watch her kids and after a few calls, her neighbor comes over.
In the meantime, she is rummaging through the box with her new camera in it that isn't ready to go and she was packing stuff in a bag. At one point when looking for someone to come over (which would have been us if we were home) Andrew suggested someone who lived 15 minutes away and Shannon assured him she wouldn't last that long.
OK, so a neighbor comes over and they rush off to the hospital. Shannon will admit she doesn't have a high tolerance for pain and she was in PAIN! Andrew will attest. He offered her his arm to help her walk and got a response something like DON'T TOUCH ME! I was cracking up with her telling me this because I can just picture it being on those baby delivery shows. So they get in and of course have to fill out paperwork and then she hears them say that she's the last patient they can take in Rancho Springs labor and delivery *phew.* They then put her in the smallest room possible to deliver a baby and check her. She's at a 6. They call her doctor to come. Meanwhile she is in tears begging for the anesthesiologist to come with the epidural. Leaning over the bed with her head practically in the drawer of the monitor system to somehow escape the pain, the nurse comes in and tells her to sit up so as not to irritate the anesthesiologist when he comes in.(Oh sure! Why are all of them men?!?!?!) 10 minutes later, when he finally arrives in his designer jeans and over grown mustache, they check her again and she's at a 9 1/2. And he still gives it to her!!! AMAZING. But too bad it never worked in time. (And her doctor was upset that he gave it to her that late-I guess it can have an effect on the baby sometimes when it is administered that late. They sat her up and after two pushes and 45 minutes of being in the hospital, baby GAVIN THOMAS DIXON comes into the world at 3:30am!

Oh yes, we forgot a part. When the anesthesiologist was in the room, and Shannon was screaming, yes screaming (she says that she was kind of seeing herself from the outside thinking holy cow I can't believe I'm one of THOSE women who is screaming and telling her husband not to touch her.) HAHA! So anyway, the doctors see the white ghostly look on Andrew's face, because does not like seeing his wife in that much pain (obviously) and they all tell him to sit before he faints. When he says, no I'm fine, they say " Sit! We had a father faint before and hit is head and he died! So sit!" So he sat.

Anyway, we are so amazed that Shannon now has NUMBER 4! AND that she did it without anything!! She said that the epidural never even numbed her legs, it just slightly numbed her back and she was able to get up and walk fine afterwards.

We went to visit later that morning so here he is! He's a doll. He doesn't have the old man look and he looks very much like his big brother. Congratulations Shannon!


Who looks THIS amazing after delivering a baby?!?!?


Big cousin Allison is a pro now!


A proud uncle.