String o' Pearls: Welcome, Little One!

Early yesterday morning, our youngest son’s wife was admitted to the hospital to be induced. She was a week past her due date with baby #1, and her doctor thought it was time to give her a little help to get the process started.

As of 24 hours later, not much was happening. So this morning, they started her on pitocin and then things finally got moving in earnest. Meanwhile, we got on the road at about 6:30 this morning, headed for Nashville to meet grandchild #20 (!!).

At 12:28 CST our daughter-in-law gave birth to an 8 lb.-1oz. baby girl, who cried “right out of the gate” (as her sports-loving dad described it), and both mom and baby are doing well. We are just over an hour away now, so we will have only missed the birth by a few hours by the time we get there.

I have to say that the Pearl family text stream was lively (and often amusing) last night and this morning. One of the fun things about having an all-boy family is watching the way the brothers interact with each other—as only guys can. They make me laugh.

For instance, when son #5 and his wife first checked into the hospital and posted the above picture to the stream, one of the sisters-in-law told the mom-to-be that she looked great. To which the daddy-to-be replied, “she demanded that I take a picture now before she gets un-cute.”

Right away, quick-witted son #4 came back with, “Felt cute. Might have a baby later. Idk.” 😂

Just a little while ago, our oldest son pointed out to his youngest brother, “Not only is your kid’s initials a word, her birthday is a palindrome. Well done.” Which I hadn’t thought of, and that’s kind of cool! 3/2/23!

It’s so different having a baby in the age of cell phones and texts (complete with hilarious memes!). When I was having babies (back in prehistoric times), extended families were in the dark about how things were going for as long as it took to get through labor and delivery, and pictures didn’t come until you could drop your film off at Walmart and wait for your blurry prints to be mailed back!

Whereas we’ve already seen what our new little granddaughter looks like! It’s so wonderful!