We are delighted to announce the birth of Zadie Barbara Bauman, born Thursday August 7 at 9:41pm and weighing in at 9 pounds 6.4 ounces. (Zadie is just a name that we like, and Barbara was Laura’s maternal grandmother.) We are all happy and healthy and looking forward to our new life together!

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Extended version

Baby’s due date was August 6, so when she didn’t come Laura decided to induce labor by wearing garish clothing. Sure enough that worked!

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Random aside: How cool would it be to get a ride to the hospital from the Beer Patrol??!

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Labor began around midnight on the night of the 6th, but Laura was kind enough to let me sleep until the morning, and at 10am on August 7 we headed to the hospital in Felix, our new Honda Fit. (Laura didn’t go for the Beer Patrol idea… plus Felix has the car seat and they won’t let you leave the hospital without one.)

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Labor progressed quickly (as least that’s the way it seemed to me!), with Laura passing the time by gently reminding me that she never wanted to do this again.

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At 6pm Laura started to push, but after 3 hours the baby still refused to come out, so we got some assistance from Dr Dorcas McLennan and her suction cup.

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Zadie was born at 9:41pm on Thursday August 7th. These pictures were taken about 10 minutes after her birth.

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Once Zadie was born we immediately saw why she had trouble coming out.

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Random aside: The fact that she would weigh in at 9 pounds 6.4 ounces (4.26 kg) was way beyond the expectations of her parents, of the midwives, and in fact of everyone except the Delphic Oracle disguised as a Metro bus driver who greeted us last Sunday morning with “Are you having twins? No?? That’s going to be a BIG BABY!”

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Multi-cultural note: I’m happy to say that this was well into Friday August 8 in Beijing and so Zadie can lay claim to being a ba ba bao bao (8th month, 8th day baby), which is quite auspicious in China.

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Little did I know that this was pretty much the last time I would be seen as a perfect substitute!

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Please stay tuned for next time, when Laura’s got a joke to share about input-output models! But for now… happy 1 week birthday, Zadie!!