We are happy to announce that Jacob Gregory Finch was born today (August 20, 2007) at 4:09 pm. Both he and mom are healthy and well. Jake was born a big boy - nine pounds exactly - much larger than any of our other kids. Twenty and a half inches long and a nice round fifteen inch head circumference (Tammy loved that during delivery).
Here is a picture of him just a few minutes after he was born.
His first bath a little while later. He didn't like that much.
He seems to mostly like when he can be held by mom.
But he did pretty good with his brothers and sisters too. Here's four year old Lizzy holding him this evening.
Six year old Anna with her new baby brother.
Even eight-year old Adam couldn't help but smile holding this precious little one.
And two year old Ben has a new pal. He's very excited!
Tammy and I dropped the kids with some friends early this morning and went to the hospital. Because of some concern, the doctors wanted to induce labor a few days early (Tammy's due date wasn't until later this week). Shortly after arriving at the hospital, they broke her water hoping that would start labor. The rest of the morning were spent wandering the hallways at the hospital hoping the contractions would start, but nothing really happened.
Around noon, the nurses came in to start the IV with pitocin, but had a very difficult time finding a vein to insert the needle. Three nurses tried twice each before they finally got one (6 rather aggressive needle sticks in all). Here's a picture of Franken-Tammy after all the poking. Notice all the band-aids on both arms.
Once the pitocin started, things picked up pretty quickly. Tammy was phenomenal throughout the whole experience (as she always is). She's never used any pain medication with any delivery before and thought going in she might try it this time to see what difference it made. But when it came down to it, she chose to continue without medication. I usually just stand there in awe the whole time watching how well she controls her pain and feeling kind of helpless to do much.
After just four hours of labor, she was fully dialated and given permission to begin pushing. It took just 90 seconds or so from that point until the baby was born. The nurse was pretty impressed - she commented that Tammy was the most controlled labor patient she'd ever had (and she's been doing this a long time).
We feel very blessed that everything turned out fine. The doctors have been confused, not understanding why the baby was not affected by the disease Tammy has (which nearly always seriously afflicts positive blood type babies). Our Iowa City doctors have all said that most likely the baby somehow has negative blood and that's why he's not shown any problems. But today we learned otherwise - Jacob has O-positive blood.
And so we attribute the health of our little one to a miracle from God. All babies are miracles from God, but we feel especially blessed that this baby was born entirely healthy. We know that many of you have been praying for this baby and we thank you for those prayers! Thanks for your interest in our family and your love and concern throughout this pregnancy. We are so happy to have our new little one here with us now!
Well, I have gotten several phone calls this past week concerning the upcoming birth of our baby. We had thought he would be here by now, but, alas, he is not. We had our last ultrasound in Iowa City on the 7th, about 38 weeks into the pregnancy (I think I counted 13 ultrasounds this pregnancy, crazy, huh!). The baby is still doing AWESOME! However, as a precaution, they like to induce at about 39 weeks. The problem is this has to all be coordinated with my doctor here in town. We had tenatively scheduled the 14th as the day to go in, but then he went out of town and I wasn't able to see him for two weeks. The doctor I saw instead felt this was too early. I told him the Iowa City drs. wanted me induced at 39 weeks (they had also sent a letter to this affect). He asked if the baby had an exchange transfusion, I said no, and he said they probably just didn't want me to go over my due date. I knew my doc was on call on the 18th so I asked him to schedule it for that day. He said my doc had changed call days so now it is scheduled for tomorrow, the 20th! That is only 3 days before my due date (I guess I should be thankful it is not 3 days after). It is no fun having to be induced either. Letting your body do it the natural way is so much better.
I am more than ready to have this baby. At our last ultrasound they asked me if I have big babies. The largest one we have had is 8 lb. 3 oz. This baby's head was off the charts at 38 weeks and they said he was measuring 8 lb. 6 oz. give or take a lb. (I pray it is not give). That was nearly 2 weeks ago. This has given me more anxiety than normal about giving birth especially with it being pushed back a few times. Add to this the fact that I have been asked several times if I am having twins (one person even asked if I was having twins or triplets!!) and I have been a little nervous. I talked to my dr. about this. He said I wasn't measuring too big and that he would be surprised if the baby was over 9 lb., but that they would closely monitor things. He is a great dr. and I like that he has delivered 3 of my babies already. I don't know if he can remember those births, but I like to think he knows what to expect at least a little. It also gives me some comfort knowing that my mother gave birth to a 9 lb. ? oz. baby. How big were you Shane? I am built a lot like she was, so hopefully things will all go well. It would just be so difficult to have a C section with 4 children and a baby to take care of, and no family that could come and stay for an extended period. I know our church family would take good care of us, but you hate to have to need it for so long.
Amidst all the waiting the kids have been anxious too. Ben tells me almost everyday, "I want my baby brother to come. How long until the baby pops out?" (if only it were that easy, pop!). We have kept busy though. The kids started school this week. At least I didn't go into labor the first day of school. They are both enjoying it so far. It is nice that the routine and the school are familar to both of them this year so they have had less concern. Anna was worried, but then the first day went so well, she has been fine. I know our routine is going to be screwed up a bit with the coming of the baby, but hopefully it won't take too long to work all of that out. It has been nice to have more time with Liz and Ben. I just can't believe how much quieter it is around here without the older two. Ben has also done SUPER with potty training. He hasn't had an accident in several days. He will even tell me when he needs to go even if we are at a store or church or whatever. That is a huge relief to me. I just hope that it continues after the baby comes. I have just been trying to complete as many little projects as I can and stay caught up with the house and laundry so there is less for Greg to worry about when the baby comes. I can't remember the last time he had to do the laundry! It is great the kids are older this time too. The older two have been making their lunches for school (with a little coaching) and can get their own breakfasts. I think this will help me so much. They are also good at entertaining Ben and doing their daily chores. I think they are excited and looking forward to the baby's arrival. It has been amazing how they have just sort of known, intuitively, the last few weeks that it is very near (OK maybe the shrinking size of my lap has something to do with it).
Well, hopefully our next post will be about our new baby and how healthy he is, and what a great labor and delivery it was. PLEASE keep us in your prayers. Soon the Finch 6 will be the Finch 7!
Adam and I traveled to the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames on Saturday. Besides the extreme heat, we had a fantastic time! The Straw Poll is a mixture of a mock election, a giant fund raiser, a good old fashioned political rally, and a carnival. Sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa and paid for by the campaigns, many of the candidates come together to participate in this mock election. Roughly 30,000 Iowans showed up for the event yesterday.
Besides the voting, there was tons of free (and very good) food, free carnival rides, tons of information and rallies about nearly every political subject imaginable, live concerts, parades, and typical carnival games.
This is a shot from the top of a ferris wheel that Adam and I were riding down on the Romney camp. The blue tent on the left is the band stand where the concerts were happening. On the right are the food tents, and in the rear on the left is the game area for kids. This picture was taken early so there weren't too many people milling about - at the height of the event, the entire area was packed with people. This is just the Romney area - all the others had similar camps set up nearby.
This is a shot facing the opposite direction sitting down near the blue bandstand. I took this picture to show some of the parades that were happening. They were kind of impromptu parades when groups of supporters from one candidate would march through another candidate's camp chanting something in support of their candidate. This is a shot of one of Ron Paul's parades marching through the Romney camp. It was all done in good spirit and I think everyone participating in those marches was having a good time. Ron Paul's supporters were definitely the most vocal of the groups.
After enjoying the party outside, we all went into the basketball arena to listen to the speeches. Each of the candidates spoke for 20 minutes or so about what they stand for and what they intend to do when elected. It was a great opportunity to hear really what each are all about. Adam only lasted through about 4 of the speeches, so we didn't get to hear everyone, but he was interested in what he heard and I think he understood fairly well what they were talking about. There were some candidates that, when they finished, he would lean over and say, "I didn't like that guy." I usually agreed with his assessment, though there were times when the crowd would go wild on some point that I didn't agree with and Adam would join in the cheering and yelling, then look at me, who wasn't cheering, and say, "Oh, that wasn't a good thing?".
There was plenty of time to "mingle" with the candidates and get autographs and shake hands. This is a picture of Adam getting close to shaking hands with Mitt Romney. I didn't get a picture of it, but Adam did eventually get up there to shake his hand. Mitt told Adam that he liked his hat (he was wearing a BYU hat) and thanked him for coming. Adam was very excited to meet someone famous. We spent some time in each of the other camps as well and got to see many of the others.
Since this wasn't an official election, there was no voter registration. Instead, we did like the Iraqi's when they had their election - marking that we had voted by dipping our thumb in permanent ink. This is a shot of my thumb after I voted.
This is at the bandstand while Romney was giving one of his speeches with his five sons standing behind him. I couldn't get him in the picture, but Adam was up at the very front right next to the guy in the white tee-shirt with gray hair. You'll notice on the left the television camera filming. There was tons of media there all day, and CSPAN was airing most of the event live. Right after I took this picture, the guy with the camera on the stage knelt down and pointed the camera right at Adam for about 20 seconds. When the speech was over and Adam came back to me, he said "I think I was on TV". I said, "Yeah, you were probably on National TV, Adam!" He, of course, thought that was pretty cool. If any of you happened to be recording CSPAN yesterday, let us know if you've got Adam!
Here's Adam standing behind the "Mitt Mobile". One of Romney's sons bought this RV and he and his family have been driving it all over Iowa campaigning during the last few months. He managed to visit all 99 counties in Iowa before the straw poll.
Here's Adam on the ferris wheel. That ferris wheel was the oldest most dilapidated machine I've ever seen. I couldn't believe they still let it operate! Yet, I still took my son on it - we were both kind of nervous!
The ferris wheel was sponsored by the "Fair Tax" lobby. It's a group pushing a new tax system called the "fair tax". It's basically the idea that you get rid of income tax and all other taxes and simply create a federal retail sales tax of 23% so that you're taxed not on what you earn or what you save, but on what you spend.
While there is some merit to that - it's certainly "fair" since everyone is paying the same rate, it seems to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle and lower class (fair, but painful for us middle and lower classers). Also, as Tammy pointed out, it could be rather burdensome to large families (like ours) who currently enjoy a lot of tax exemptions because we're raising a flock of future tax payers. There are provisions to help with some of that (for example, I think things are tax free up to a certain established poverty-line limit, so the poorest of poor don't pay taxes), but I don't know how far they go.
What do you all think of the idea? You can read more at fairtax.org if you're interested. This was one of the biggest lobby groups there and three-fourths of the republican candidates have endorsed this concept (Romney has not).
Next - we have a video of Adam on the climbing wall. He really did awesome for his first time climbing and went up quite a bit higher than I think I could have gotten!
And, last but not least here's a random picture of all the kids completely unrelated to the straw poll, just because they're all so cute.
We had a great time! I've never been to a real old-fashioned political rally before and just had a great time. You could kind of get a sense for how politics was operated in the 1800's before television (although probably on a much larger scale here). As we were leaving, Adam said, "I want to go back next year!" I said, "Sorry Adam, they only do these every four years at most. And, if the Republicans win this election, they won't have another one for eight years." At that, he frowned and said, "Well, I hope the democrats win then!"
Results of the straw poll was Romney winning by a big margin with Huckabee coming in second and Brownback third. A few of the other candidates (Rudy Guiliani and John McCain) didn't participate - probably because they were both losing to Romney in the polls in Iowa and didn't want to suffer an embarrassing loss early in the campaign. The straw poll typically doesn't do much for the front-runners, but it will usually weed out some of those lagging far behind. I think Monday you'll hear of at least one pulling out of the race and potentially others to follow.
So, you've made it through another long political post, Auntie Ann (since she's the only one to comment on my last post I figure she's probably the only one willing to read this far!). I promise we'll drop the politics on the next post and have something more family oriented on our next post (hopefully some news about a new baby)!
Sometimes we just love living in Iowa! One of the funnest things for us is being able to participate every four years much more intimately than normal in the presidential election process. There is an opportunity virtually every day to go out and meet and greet one of the candidates.
A couple of weeks ago, Tammy and the kids drove to a neighborhood library to meet Barak Obama. Hillary and Bill Clinton were in town a week or two ago. Yesterday, Rudy Guiliani was chatting with people at the Bettendorf High School. This morning Tammy and I went and had breakfast with Mitt and Ann Romney at the Abbey Hotel (down the street from our old house).
You can get to know a candidate pretty well watching them in televised debates and reading their speeches and articles about them. But it's often much more insightful to sit in a small room with someone when they're more relaxed and more personable and just listen to them talk about their vision for America and to be able to ask your own questions directly to them. It's really a great experience!
So, in this post, we're going to open up a little more than we usually do about politics and give you an assessment of what we think of the candidates so far. We'll start with Republicans.
We really, really, really like Mitt Romney. I know, some of you are rolling your eyes thinking - he's Mormon, of course you like him. I'll just say that eight years ago Orrin Hatch was a Mormon running for president and we didn't even think about supporting him in the caucus (even after he came to our ward twice). He just wasn't our type. It's really not about his religion - honestly.
Here's what we like about Mitt Romney:
He's really, really smart. In our minds, this almost comes before anything else in importance. I think he has tremendous capacity to analyze extremely tough problems, to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints and really solve problems. I think a smart president is more capable of standing with confidence behind his decisions and won't have to rely only on advisers. Instead he can take the advice of the advisers and process that to make sound decisions. No more puppet presidents!
I think he's genuine. That was one of the most impressive things I felt this morning - he really believes in what he's doing for the right reasons. I don't think he's doing this to feed his ego or to try to put his name in the history books - I think he really cares about our nation and feels that he can help it. He has a passion for it, and it comes across clearly when you hear him talk - it's very motivational.
He's got some great leadership experience and it's obvious that he's a tremendous leader - in all the right ways.
He communicates very clearly and well. His arguments are nearly always well thought-out and well-organized and persuasive.
It seems he's been successful in every important way in life. His family seems great. We really liked his wife this morning and his kids have been very active and very involved in the campaign. If you haven't read his sons' blog, it's pretty good reading (mittromney.com - look for "5 brother's blog".
So those are the things we really like about him. Notice I didn't mention any policies and probably won't say much about them in this post.
Here's my take on policy in general. I believe that the president can come up with all the policies in the world and not ever make a difference if he's not smart, not genuine, not a leader, not able to communicate and persuade, and not successful in his personal life. Nearly every candidate running for president has some good policy ideas, some mediocre policy ideas, and some poor policy ideas - and my judgment of them are going to differ from yours. Some of their ideas will succeed, some will fail. I don't agree with any of them 100% (Romney included). But in my mind, I don't think that policy matters as much as ability in this job.
That's not to say policy doesn't matter. You, of course, have to choose someone who is going to use their tremendous leadership skills to move things in the direction you want them to go. We have spent quite a bit of time learning about the policies of the different candidates and I generally agree with Romney's policies and I think overall I'm more aligned with him than any others.
It's only fair if I mention a few things I haven't really liked about him:
Tammy and I have never been big fans of the 'war on terror'. All the Republicans (except Ron Paul) talk way too much about it and make it way too much of a focus. The war in Iraq does need to be a focus now because it's costing so much in every way (I'm not just talking about money). I don't know the best way to proceed in that war, but it does need to be an important part of the debate during this campaign. But beyond the war in Iraq, while some attention still needs to be paid to the 'war on terror', I think there are much more important and relevant issues our government needs to be focused on. And it seems that the Republicans (Romney included) are just too focused in this one area.
Romney is a politician whether he admits it or not. He plays the same games the others play. In some ways that bugs me, I don't usually like politicians. On the other hand, it's another indication of how smart he is - he knows he can't win the game unless he plays the game.
I've not been impressed with the organization of his campaign in Eastern Iowa. Adam and I are planning to go to the straw poll on Saturday and have had quite a confusing time trying to get signed up. That bugs me.
Okay - enough of Romney. I'll speak briefly about the others.
I like Guiliani's personality, but that's about it. I disagree with his stance on important moral issues. The fact that he's been divorced multiple times, doesn't have a good relationship with his kids, and is standing on shaky ground morally all-around makes me think he's not the guy I want as president. Also, some of his policy ideas just don't make sense to me - it seems to me he's not super bright. (Not to mention he's snubbing the Iowa straw poll - which doesn't make Iowans very happy).
I've never really like John McCain personally. He's never really campaigned in Iowa much, so we haven't gotten to know him well. I think it's admirable that he's served for so long and I think he's done some pretty good things in Congress, but Congress seems like a good place to keep him. He seems to be kind of worn-out on politics or something - kind of like, if elected, he'll stay the course but not really be able to improve things.
Of the "lesser-known" candidates, I like Huckabee pretty well. Don't really like Brownback (even though he's from my neck of the woods in Kansas). Most of the others are too extreme or unusual for my tastes.
On the democrat side, we started off liking Barak Obama pretty well. That's part of the reason Tammy and the kids wanted to see him. But we're starting to think less of him as time goes on. He's made some mistakes and hasn't been all that impressive in the debates. I will tell you one thing though - his campaign is by far the best organized of any candidate on either side in our area. Every major community event (4th of July parade and the Bix race to name a few) - his campaign turns out in large numbers recruiting people. None of the other candidates come close in that arena. We get calls from all the campaigns and his have been the best and most informative and friendly of any of the campaigns.
I'm going to say something now I never thought would cross my lips. I've always mocked the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president, but we've honestly been very impressed with her. I talked earlier about the qualities we look for in a good leader. She's right up there with Mitt on most of those things. It would be an interesting race if the two of them were nominees.
Well, if you made it to the bottom of this post, I'm impressed. I know most of you probably haven't even started to look at the presidential race yet, but it's impossible to avoid here in Iowa. It's on everybody's minds and everybody's lips these days. It's been said before that Iowans understand the importance of being the first caucus and we take that responsibility seriously (not to mention it's really kind of fun).
So now I've painted a big red target on my back. Go ahead and fire away! We'd love to hear your thoughts.
If the baby doesn't arrive by Saturday, Adam and I will be off to the Straw Poll in Ames. It's going to be a fun event I think. We'll post again to let you know how it goes.
We had some more medical excitement around the house last week. As the kids get older (and as we get more kids) events like these are becoming less exciting and more commonplace, but it's still out of the ordinary!
Adam was invited to a friend's house to go bike riding. He was especially excited because this friend lives in a more rural area and has some woods with dirt bike trails near their house.
Unfortunately, on the way to the dirt bike path, they were riding along a gravel road and the gravel got the best of him. I guess, being a city kid, he's not yet learned to ride on gravel. He fell and split his knee open pretty badly. The mom at the house patched him up, but he never made it back out on bikes that day.
Later that evening, we took the bandage off his knee and found quite an ugly sight. We decided we had better get him patched up so we took him to the urgent care place. Good thing we did - there was a good sized hole in his leg full of little rocks and grass and stuff.
Adam seems to never get nervous about anything, but I think I've figured him out finally. I think when he is nervous, he just covers it up very well. He becomes very poised, almost grown-up. He sits with his legs crossed comfortably and has a very serious look on his face - not a look of fear, but a very calm and peaceful, but still alert look. Every time I've seen him sitting like that, it's been before some performance or some other big thing that he should be nervous about. I think he's got an unusual ability to calm himself when faced with a difficult situation so he either doesn't feel the nerves or at least he doesn't show it.
He had the exact same look at the doctor's office waiting for the wound to be cleaned, and I realized he was probably pretty worried about it.
So, we go into the procedure room at the doctor's and Adam was still being VERY serious - answering the questions from the nurse in a very poised and mature manner. Finally the doctor came in and started cleaning and picking at the wound. I could tell Adam was in some serious pain - it was starting to show through and at one point he even gasped and said, "Oh, that hurt!". But he never cried and was just so controlled through the whole thing - I was very impressed.
After the doctor put in the numbing medicine and the pain went away, Adam was very interested in what was happening. He sat up and watched carefully. I could see the look in his eye, "Oh cool, look at all that blood gushing from my leg ... Neat - I can see down inside my skin when he pulls my skin out like that! Oh wow - did you see that rock that was in my knee!" And so on. I was grossed out, but Adam was totally entertained. Like I said, the doc had to pick around quite a bit to get the rocks and grass and stuff out.
Lizzy also went with Adam and I. She was soooo funny. The whole time, she was super talkative. She is our most un-shy child and was talking the whole time, asking the doctor every step of the way what he was doing. She would walk right over to him and stand there right next to him watching him work. The doctor was great - he answered all of her questions very well and wasn't annoyed at all. Lizzy was asking some great questions though so it was hard to be annoyed (such as, "How do x-rays see inside you?" and "Is this the stitches part? Is that a real needle and thread you're using?"
It was a good experience. I don't get to go to the doctor with the kids much - usually that's Tammy's department, but I enjoyed going and was pretty proud of both of my kids for how they behaved and how they are both maturing.
Following are some pictures taken the last couple of days. One with Adam's stitches (3 stitches) and then some of the kids at quiet time yesterday.
