Big news!

Introducing Howard Anderson Miller, as conceived, produced and delivered by Colton and Caitlin Miller. 

Arrival, Wednesday, July 17, 2019, 8:51 PM, Dixie Regional Medical Center, St. George, Utah. 

This photo, featuring a remarkably wide awake wee boy, was taken on Sunday, July 21.

From the archives: July, 2001

Happy birthday, Dear Claire!

Friday, July 6, 2001: Sharon goes to the doctor. Only one cm. dilated, and not much effacement. Then, a lifeline, for her anyway. It seems there’s this new gel. They’ll apply it tomorrow at 3 and 9, then next morning there should be a baby. Caitlin and Drew were there with us. Our response is matter-of-factly cheerful. It suddenly strikes me though. I'm not sure I've sufficiently prepared myself for this child! I’d better get started here. 

Ready or not, the baby’s coming, and we know it. All there is to do is wait.

Saturday, July 7: We drive to Payson to get that stuff applied. We got back at 5. We prepare, we anticipate. We shoot a bit more footage for our family scripture movie. Matty compromises our carefully planned “she’s in labour” aside from Drew by running utterly naked through the back of the shot. 

We go back to Payson at 9:30 to have some more of that gel applied. Apparently some women don’t make it out of the hospital after this procedure. Sharon isn’t one of those women. 

Sunday, July 8: We slept, me comfortably, Sharon intermittently, and quietly. At 5 AM we get up and get ready. We’re not quite going through the motions, but things are pretty business-like, given that an actual baby is coming. Connie Warren comes over, and we drive down to the hospital. Clean, clear, countryside. Mozart, piano # 17. At 6:30 we’re admitted, at 7:00 we’re hooked up, measured at two cm. (is that all?), and slowly moving on our way. 

This day turns out to be like some avant garde film or play or story; short the narrative conventions, you’re not sure how or when it’s going to end. So everything was attended by an is-it-now? suspense that looks faintly silly in retrospect. At 7:30 I rush back to get the girls. They’re not ready. Hurry I think (but don’t say). No telling what we might miss!  

Well, not much, as it turns out. We leave the boys with Connie. “I love you, Matt,” says Sarah. “I’m upset!” says Matt. We get back to the hospital at 9. Mum looks somehow, oh, exactly the same. At 9:30 Dr. Nance comes, pre-his church, to see how things are. “See you after church,” he says

So we settle in for the long occupation. We play Battleship, Hi-Q, string games. We read, fitfully. This is taking a long time, but these contractions are also coming quick. They're two, two-and-a-half minutes apart, and we see Sharon, if we look over, setting her teeth and going through it. The rest of us go for a Payson drive, come back to about the same. 

Still, this is progress. In fact, at 1:15 the doctor returns to break that water. The kids, who’ve been noticing the passage of time, are suddenly, briefly wide-eyed and silent. They might not have been sure they wanted to see that. Just wait, girls. 

Sharon’s pain increases. The rest of us go to the cafeteria. Then more games, and Drew and Sarah start visiting the lounge and looking into the nursery. Caitlin mostly sticks it out. At 3:00 Sharon gets a shot of Nubane, and feels blissful for awhile. These good girls are feeling a bit restless. At 3:30 I go home to get them some food, and to check on the boys. I’m back at 4:30 to find that we’re at six cm., and that things seem to be moving along now. The girls eat, and we enjoy an old (’91) home movie I’ve brought. 

At 5:00 the __ stop by. That was awkward! The pain is getting bad, and in fact, at this point, proves to be positively breathtaking. Sharon, the trooper calls for an epidural—too late! “I’m too old… I can’t do it…” She does it. 

Doctor Nance returns at 5:30, the stirrups go up and we come to the moment, or to the moments. The everlasting pattern repeats. One push, and a crown. The girls are standing on the couch, stunned, shrinking a little bit. I pan quickly across them with my eyes and see Sarah at the end, moved to tears. I feel a stab myself—looking at them, I’m seeing this for the first time again. 

After I rush to Sarah and turn around we all see a second push and a whole squinty, pugilist’s head. A third push and our new baby sister comes into the world. What I’d hoped for! Ah. 

The doctor cuts the chord and gets a spurt of blood in the face. It hits the ceiling. We all enjoy that. Except him.  Now all the matter of fact scurrying and cleaning begins, which doesn't quite mask the fiercely biological nature of the whole transaction, or the awesome spiritual immanence of it all. 5:44 PM, 20”, 8 lbs and 9 ozzes. Claire Duncan!

She didn’t cry, and they can’t quite make her. Sharon takes her. Sharon looks fresh and delighted. Heroic! The girls get just a bit clamoury. I had been ten hours for them, and twelve for Sharon! This is the longest ever—she paid in hard hours for those few days she gained. 

Caitlin calls Spence. “Oh!  I wanted a baby sister!” Matt talks about Donald Duck. The baby goes to the nursery, Mum (not cut, and just slightly torn) prepares to go to her room, and we walk out onto the rain-shiny street and drive home. The girls are cheerful and kindly—this is a very good thing for us to have done. Grandma Anderson calls. I call Mum and Dad. I want to go back to the hospital! I need to stay back though, with the kids. I do so.  

Connie gives a report. At church Matt lost track of himself and went up the aisle, asking “have you seen my brother, Spencer Duncan?” The Randalls, and Bill Mackenzie come over for a long chat. When they leave Spence says, “Russell and Brock, hopefully you can come over tomorrow and see our new baby sister.” 

I call Susan and Sharon. Susan, who loves babies, and has loved it when we have babies, talks for a long time. I don’t get back to the hospital until 10:30.  Sharon wakes up. We talk briefly. I sit on the other bed, and drop off. At midnight I wake up, say goodnight and go blearily, happily home. 

http://abouthomemovies.org/2012/07/13/baby-claire/

Monday, July 9: After some morning scrambling, we all go back to the hospital. Everyone is happy, and anxious to hold this quiet, mostly sleeping and otherwise so seemingly grave baby. I hold her too, looking deeply down, speculating and extrapolating. A sweet child. Spence and Matt operate on Caitlin, who is dead, but who still has a baby they must extract. 

We get a nice dinner from the Haymonds. Caitlin is impressed by the Relief Society organizations. Confident in leaving everyone, I go back to Payson for a nice long visit. We look at that baby, chat, play Yahtzee. Familiar things, in the face of this enormous new thing. Or, the other way around. Either way, good!

Tuesday, July 10: Up and cleaning. The kids do a nice job. I drop #s 3-5 at Laurel Lopez’s and go back to Payson (in the end it was eighteen back and forths!) to pick up the girls. I get my free hospital meal, and then we cool our heels until one o’clock before the pediatrician comes, again, to re-okay the baby by saying the exact thing he said yesterday. We pass the time by condemning institutional uncommunication and arrogance. (When Sharon told him she wanted to leave at 9, why didn’t he say he wouldn’t be there until noon?) 

Once back, the kids clamour around stupendously. Most of them want to help and hold. Matt feels differently. “Mum—get that baby off!” All the while Claire is just extremely quiet. Matt and I go to the playground and the library and have a nice time. The Waddoups bring dinner, and I go to bishopric meeting. I get back to find the kids sort of fighting over this snoozing infant. But sort of not. This is all good. 

I call the Richardsons. John says, sarcastically—“Oh, I suppose I should ask some questions.”

Wednesday, July 11: Sharon is worried about Claire, who is refusing to wake up…. She gets her first bath, and cries tinily.  Her eyes open very wide, and she starts to look very around. Everyone remains extremely interested. 

Drew bikes to the pool, and Caitlin to her soccer camp. There may be occasional objections, for old time’s sake, but I’m noticing with pleasure that these two are gainfully busy and increasingly self reliant. They get ready, and they get out, and they get things done. 

Dinner from the Randalls, cake from the Cotters. Drew plays the dullest double-header in the history of sport. The cool evening, however, is very refreshing. I notice that Drew is enjoying herself. She interacts cheerfully, quietly, confidently with her mates (Sydney particularly). I’m very gratified as she comes over intermittently to chat, to tell me what’ happening, to point out the striking colour of the sky, to say hello. I look at her (out of focus) team picture and see suddenly, staring back at me, a very lovely, very growing up girl. Boring ball games give you time to reflect. 

One of Drew’s opponents, who seems to be preparing to run for office, beamed at me as she walked by. “Tell Drew she played a really great game!” That would be two four-balls-in-four-pitches walks, and two fielding positions with the ball never coming close to her. 

Thursday, July 12: Worried no more—now Claire refuses to sleep!  It’s the old round of extortion: precarious rest when you hold her, alarms when you put her down. Sharon eventually succeeds in giving her a good feeding, sticks her in her chair, and she lasts the night. Sharon figures that she was just sedated. 

We go to see Jerry Spinelli at the Read Leaf. He talks for forty-five minutes, and it’s very interesting. I wasn’t sure about Sarah, who had that distracted look. But based on how enthusiastically, and how detailedly they pass Spinelli’s stories on afterwards, they must have been listening, and happily. The autograph doesn’t quite come off. Drew grumbles, amused and amusingly. “To Duncan,” he wrote. 

I pick up Matt at the Lopez’s. Laurel wants him to come more. “You know how some kids are just fun?” He and Amanda have apparently pledged their love, but I’m wondering if the exchange wasn’t engineered just a little bit.   

Friday, June 13: Matt paces up and down in front of the road in his tutu. Spencer is happy to have both his parents watch him at his swimming lesson. The hesitant boy becomes less so, not only bobbing, but dunking and turning around as he does so, paddling on his back all by himself, smiling a lot, donning a life jacket and going from front to back, back to front. One might add that those jumps off the side are still pretty extremely tentative. But one wouldn’t need to. 

Evening: barbecue, Really Rosie, the parrot sketch, Brian Wilson, cool winds, falling asleep with Spence on the hammock. 

Saturday, July 14: Sharon and the girls go to a swim meet. Matt walks over and into Connie’s house, wearing his dress. The Randalls invite us for a barbecue. Clouds roll in, dark and cold. Scary stories (Grimm and Poe) are requested. That’s the problem with the one room schoolhouse. Either you reduce and soften everything for general consumption, or you scare your five year old out of his wits. 

Sunday, July 15: Robbie Warren tells his mother a story. “I was asleep and then someone started ringing the doorbell. It rang over and over, but by the time I got to the door there was no one there. Then I looked over to the street, and I saw a little boy walking away. He was wearing a dress.” Connie: “I know who that was.”

...

Thursday, July 19: Claire looks at us and stays looking at us, in a way that she really hasn't done before. Then she does it again. We hold her, for a long, long time.