Daniel Benjamin Muir

Well August 3, 2007 was a most exciting day for The William S. and Mary Anne Muir family!

When Andrew and Lily were getting ready for bed, they were told that when they woke up, Mommy and Daddy would be at the hospital "picking up" baby Daniel. This was a bit confusing to Andrew, who, after insisting that the name was Danny and not Daniel, said, "Danny's here. In Mommy's tummy."
So we explained we were going to the hospital so Danny could come out of Mommy's tummy and meet everyone. Naturally, this caused a general excitement that took a while to calm down. Fortunately, Nana Taylor was around to help appease anxious Andrew and lull loving Lily to sleep. Nana spent the night at our house and then in the morning Mom and Dad woke early enough to shower and eat before going to St. Rose Hospital.

We arrived at the maternity ward around 7:35 and the reception nurse said "Please tell me you're my induction." We smiled and said we were. Mary had informed me on our way to the hospital that her goal was to keep smiling as long as she could. Naturally, I welcomed this most wonderful news and from that moment began cracking jokes and being generally jovial. Fortunately, this proved to be most advantageous as our nurse was a loving and good humored lady with a thick Scottish accent named Lize (Pronounced Liz). We couldn't have asked for a better nurse. She was a midwife as well and after we'd talked a bit, we found out that she was very good friends with the Scottish Nurse at Spring Mountain Hospital who delivered Lily 17 months ago. Lize did us the honor of speaking to us often with her Scottish brogue and endearing humor. We also learned that the maternity wing was extremely busy and we had received the last available room. (Good thing we had an appointment!)

However, due to the volume of work to be done, we could not be expected to have dear Lize all the time. By 10:00, there had been 16 deliveries in the last 24 hours!!! Around 10:05 Lize reappeared and finished the paperwork and told us of the delivery she had just helped with that had a cord issue where the cord had come out before the baby and caused all sorts of problems. Luckily Lize was able to get down under the bed and push the baby back up the birth canal while Dr. Herpolsheimer (our doctor as well) moved the cord out of the way. She said they were very lucky to have been able to save the baby. It was obviously quite an ordeal since her arm was shaking and hurting from the pressure it had required to do what was necessary. Then she started Mary on a slow pitosin drip to get her contractions coming regularly. Meanwhile, Back home, Nana was having a fun time watching Andrew and Lily play in their little kiddie pool.

After getting called away again for another delivery, she re-appeared around 11:45 and was going to check Mary's progression, but realized the doctor would be back in 15 minutes to break her water anyway so she said she'd wait. To make things more enjoyable, she had fun joking about Dr. H since she had helped with many of his deliveries in the past and knew him quite well. Once he arrived, he gave Mary her first check of the day around noon (she was at 3 by then), and broke her water. We all continued to crack jokes and one up each other and Mary was doing an excellent job of smiling! The pitosin was increased slightly in order to help things move along. Lize did not like the idea of heavy pit drips since they seemed to accomplish little more while magnifying the pain immensely. Mary definitely appreciated her approach. They told Mary as soon as she wanted the epidural to let the nurse know. Around 3:00, Mary had reached a 5 and the contractions were painful enough for her to request an epidural through smiling lips which I found it necessary to kiss!

As usual, once she got the epidural, she was able to relax better and things really started moving along. By 4:00 Mary was dilated to a 7 and Lize had prepared the delivery table with all the fresh shiny instruments the Dr. might need to use, and had him summoned from his office across town. This she did on explicit instructions both from us as well as Dr. H that he was to be notified early enough so that he could be sure to be there. This was due to his unwillingness to settle for the 50% delivery average he had established with our former children. He'd already been one upped by Lily when she was delivered by our other favorite nurse who was the spitting image of Mrs. Doubtfire, accent and all. So naturally, Lize joked about calling him in after placing one of the hospital's practice dolls neatly wrapped up under the heat lamp so he would think he'd missed it again.

Around 4:30, the doctor did come and check Mary one last time simply to pronounce she was 100% and that he'd be back in 15 minutes to complete the delivery. The contractions were coming hard and fast now and the urge to push was paramount. Nurse Lize helped us by encouraging Mary to hum as she did her exhales. After some testing and reflection, I concluded this was most wise since its nearly impossible to flex abdominal muscles while humming without some change in pitch or tone of the note hummed. Thus the nurse would be apprised if Mary was inadvertently pushing.


The Dr returned around 4:40, put on his booties and gloves, and got things ready to deliver. Around 4:45 he had Mary push with that contraction. She pushed very well and the baby's head came out over the crown to the eye sockets. One more push and the rest of the head and shoulders appeared and Dr. H was able to pull Danny the rest of the way out at 4:46 PM on Friday, August 3rd.. After the doctor suctioned out his mouth and nose, Danny let out a few wails indicating his strong set of lungs. Daddy got to cut the cord and then baby Danny was wiped off a bit, wrapped in a towel and handed to Mary.

His eyes were wide open already and there was a good amount of hair on the back of his head. In fact, he had almost as much hair at birth as Lily has right now at 17 months. His eyes look like they will be blue and the hair could be reddish like Lily's. That is of course a guess since it is likely to all fall out within a few weeks anyway and then its anyone's guess what color it comes back in as.

He was 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 187.5 pounds. If you just read that and didn't raise an eyebrow, then you need to re-read it. He was actually 6 lbs 6 ounces and 18.75 inches long. A small baby by average standards, however right on par for the rest of our children.









Like Andrew and Lily, his head was relatively small which gave him the toddler-like proportions which are so endearing. He got Daddy's "ski-jump" nose as opposed the button noses shared be Lily, Andrew and Mommy. in short, he was absolutely adorable right after birth which is amazing to me.

After he had been cleaned up, measured, and weighed the pediatric nurse pronounced him a beautiful baby boy with an APGAR of 9 / 10. I had to agree that he belongs in the top 5% of most beautiful babies in the world. He was rooting for food as soon as he was born and after a bit of coaxing latched on to mommy and had a good first meal.

The Doctor had finished stitching up Mary's first degree perennial laceration (three stitches did the trick), and so after some more jabs between Lize and Dr. H, he excused himself to return later.
But not before we had a chance to snap a couple pictures of him with our third child which enabled him to rise above his previous 50% attendance category ;-).After that, it was a blur of hugs, kisses, Nana and Roosevelt, Grandma and Grandpa Muir with Andrew and Lily, phone calls and smiles.


We are very grateful to our Heavenly Father for trusting us with His precious spirit child and blessing us so much to have happy health and beautiful babies. We hope and pray we will be good parents and teach them to do what is right. We are all well and healthy and very grateful for all the love and care we've received. We love you all and will soon have much more to post. I'm sure Danny will be no exception to the rule we've established of have extremely cute, albeit somewhat impish, children! For now, Enjoy the photos and smiles!

-Will