It's a Boy!

Happy Birthday Matthew!

So this is the official announcement of our little guy, who showed up Tuesday morning. Mother and baby are both doing wonderfully, and we are thrilled to finally see him. So a quick rundown: (without all the motherly details of the delivery Mom Laudie has been pressing for having experienced almost every conceivable birthing scenario with her 11 deliveries -- when she finally got Lindsey on the phone, there was more than one occasion for her to say, "Michael didn't tell me that! Why in the world wouldn't he have told me that they didn't start you out on the gels first?!?" Any other Mom Laudie's out there will have to call Lindsey for the gory details [623-848-1443]... I'll spare the rest of you...)

The Name: Matthew Richard Laudie
      Why Matthew? We like the name. The fact that it has family significance on my side is mainly a formality and an excuse for us to use a name we like. The significance? Matthew William Dalton, my great-great-grandfather was the pioneer member of the church on that line... my understanding was that he was passing through Salt Lake during the gold-rush era and never made it on to California... The fact that he was a polygamist? That just means our Matthew's gonna be a handful when he turns 16!
      Why Richard? That's my middle name. Given Lindsey's family history of producing girls, this may be my one opportunity to pass along my name in some form or other, so I get to pass along not only my middle name but my initials as well. With as much as Amy is a Momma's Girl and wants nothing to do with me half of the time, this may be my feeble attempt at getting a child who worships his daddy.

The Weight: 8 lbs even
      How often do you hear that? Most babies have weights like 8 lbs 2 oz or 7 lbs 18 oz. When you hear 8 lbs, you think the dad is just trying to play cool and round up or down, as if he doesn't remember the exact weight... That's my style. Often someone asks me to pass along some detail or other, and even though my memory is spot on, I have this weird tendency to downplay the detail. Example: I've been asked when Lindsey was due at least 20 times where I've responded, "Oh, the first of June", or "The end of May'ish", or "Sometime before the Second Coming of Christ". Why beat around the bush like that when I know very well that the date is June 6th? I'm gonna stand by the whole cool concept; with me you can just assume that I'm this wonderful father who remembers the exact time, day, weight, height, etc, but cool enough that I can spare you the humiliation of hearing the details and forgetting when you have to parrot them on. You get asked, "Honey, when were the Laudie's expecting to have their baby?" Instead of, "Well, gosh, I think it was June 6th at 5:55 pm... or was that June 5th at 6:66 pm?" you can just say, "Well, Mike says they're due before the moon turns to blood!" and you're covered. But in this case, I'm not sparing you the details; little Matthew (or not quite so little Matthew) was exactly 8 pounds, no rounding required on my part.

The Height: 20 and 1/2 inches
      I'm not quite sure why we care about this statistic. "Wow! Your baby was 21 inches? Mine was only 19 and 1/2... Golly, yours was long! Like a little string bean... maybe you should name him 'Bean-jamin'!" The weight stat I can understand. "An eleven pound baby?!? Glad it was you and not me!" This is one of those stats that I'd either downplay or downright forget and then get whacked in the back of the head by Lindsey later for not remembering how long the neighbors' newborn was (see The Weight above). But I'm providing the detail for those of you who obviously know what to do with it (and to save my poor head from a good whacking!).

The Time: 10:53 am
      Now this is a big one at the Laudie house. Have you ever seen City Slickers? At the beginning of the movie, Billy Crystal gets a phone call in the middle of the night at his exact birth time from his mother, "Happy Birthday Curly! I remember the night when you were born... you were so little... the doctor thought you were going to... and in the middle of that, I pulled out a baseball bat and started whacking your father over the back of the..." This is the annual phone call I get from my mother, almost word for word. And I wouldn't miss it for the world. Lucky for me and Matthew, we were both born in the late morning and won't get woken up in the middle of the night by our moms when they make the birthday time call. I guess the same goes for Amy, who was born at 11:02 on 11/02 (leave it to a Laudie [thanks Dad] to figure that one out!).
      We went into the hospital late Monday night after having a nice day of golfing, yard work, swimming, and barbecuing for the Memorial Day holiday. We were told to expect a call around 7 or 8 pm that night, and after exhausting all hope of having the baby that night and settling down to sleep by 11, we finally got the call. So we spent the night in the delivery room, waiting for modern medicine to help Matthew on his way into the world, and neither of us got much sleep. And after a long morning of contractions (thanks again to modern medicine for the pain relief) and a few little scares with the baby heart monitor and a tangled cord, Matthew finally showed up at 10:53, and had a proud father and an emotional mother thrilled to finally meet the little tyke.

The APGAR Score: 8/9
      "What does that one mean?" you're wondering. You've got me. My guess: It's a measure of Attractiveness, Piano-playing ability, Greatness, Academic Aptitude, and Regality. In reality, I think it means that we had a pretty healthy baby at 2 minutes old and an even more healthy baby at 5 minutes old.

Well, so much for me sparing you the details... okay, so I left most of the gory ones out, but given my rambling nature (Thanks Mom Laudie), I've taken 1,256 words to tell you what I could have in the following summary:

The Name: Matthew Richard Laudie
The Weight: 8 lbs even
The Height: 20 and 1/2 inches
The Time: 10:53 am
The APGAR Score: 8/9
Mother and Baby are both healthy and doing fine. We got home late yesterday afternoon and are getting settled. Amy is with Lindsey's folks (Thanks Grandma Lewis!). You can get the more interesting version of events from Lindsey in the days to come on her blog.

Now wasn't that so much better than my commentary on events? And let's be honest, if you've made it this far in the email, it's only because you're holding out hope that I'll actually attach a picture or two of the star of the day. So to reward you for your patience, here you go. We love you all, and are so grateful for your support and help through the pregnancy.

Lots of love,
Mike, Lindsey, Amy, and Matthew