Regent — One who rules during the absence of a monarch.

Anne and I have spent much time on the question of a name, as we always do.

Here is some background . . .

My grandfather, Richard Brown, in the year that he died, asked that I name a son after his great grandfather. And thus we have Ignatius John, named after Ignatius Brown (1781-1820) and his grandfathers John Walker and John Brown. Our second born is Isaac William, named after one of the patriarchs of our Faith, named for our great joy, and named after the delivering doctor (Dr. Williams – a difficult delivery) and William Browne, who came to America in 1634 as a 13 year old indentured servant on Lord Baltimore’s Ark and the Dove expedition. And we have Gabriel Thomas, our third son, named after a very important Angel, named after the father of William Browne who sent his son on an expedition to a new world to escape the anti-Catholicism of England at that time. Named Thomas after the great saint Thomas More, who helped inspire me to join the Catholic church, reversing a decision made by my ancestors at the time of the Revolutionary War. And we have our little Elizabeth Anne, which was the easy choice in names. I asked my beautiful and faith-filled wife, Anne Elizabeth, if we could honor her and her parents through Elizabeth Anne. The name certainly points directly toward one of the greatest moments in history — when Mary, the daughter of Anne, the daughter of Eve, freshly impregnated by the Holy Spirit, was greeted by Elizabeth, who carried John the Baptist in her womb. Elizabeth Anne also prepares our family for a possible return to the South one fine day. We could not do better than “BethAnne” down there!

And now we come to the naming of our fourth son. We appreciate the advice we have received, but already had it narrowed down to a few great choices, and so already had all the raw material prayed through.

We yet strive to honor our heritage and roots. We are struck by the desire to point all toward the Risen King of Glory. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Judah was the fourth son of Israel. Judah became, in the New Testament, Jude. Anne asked Saint Jude to pray for her during difficult hours in the birth process yesterday.

Our son’s first name is JUDAH, and his nickname shall be Jude. Call him either. We are so excited to be able to point him to such a great heritage, including the Hammer of God, Judah Maccabee ( Yehudah HaMakabi)

We also wish to point our son toward his most honorable family history and most important North Star, and thus his middle name is CHRISTOPHER. It means “Christ bearer.” And it was the name of Anne’s father’s grandfather. Christopher Bartholomew Walker was born in 1873 and died in 1962. He and Mary Isabel Gooderl and had four children. We honor this ancestor of all five of our children.

World, we ask you to take note of the birth of our fifth child: JUDAH CHRISTOPHER BROWN

Date of birth 12/27/2008 @ 19:06 hours

Weight after nursing for an hour: 8 pounds, 14 ounces

Length 22 inches

Head circumference: 14.5 inches

Anne’s biggest baby!

Name: tbd

Status: healthy, alert, perfectly formed, suckling

Dad’s thoughts at birth:

First, praise be to God!

Second, lack of health insurance is becoming common in our country. Too many employers, like Walmart, offer few employees coverage. Too many employers that once covered their employees are going belly up due to unrestrained foreign competition — a lack of resolve on the part of our elected officials to protect our national interests.

Those without health insurance may decide that having babies is too expensive. Indeed, a routine delivery at a hospital can cost $10,000. A complicated delivery many, many times more than that. C-sections are becoming quite popular, and they can easily cost twice as much as a routine vaginal birth. (See my previous thoughts on the professionalization, even industrialization, of the birth process.)

Why not consider home delivery if you are uninsured. We did. It was our third such delivery outside of a hospital setting. Two were at a birth center, with insurance. (The insurance companies probably love us) This one was at home, on our own dime.

The out of pocket costs

for the uninsured Brown family? $3000.

You can afford to have a baby. They are well worth that much!

Here are great resources for such an alternative approach to health care delivery:

Janis Chrissikos, RN (click to go to Janis’website)

Laura Gilbert, certified midwife (click to go)

Anne and Bryan and little not-yet-named all three recommend Janis and Laura!

Final word: We have done the forceps, we have done the chemical accelerants, we have done the c-section — all on our first two and in the hospitals. Our third and fourth at a birth center and our fifth at home were FAR AND BEYOND better experiences. The parents are in control. Make that the birther — as it should be.

As for the “give me no drugs” make it an earth birth, I (Bryan) think that Anne might be a bit crazy. But whatever she is, she is my LIONESS!!!

Dec 27 @ 1700 hours. Anne’s contractions are stalling out again, with dilation of 8 cm. She is exhausted but in great humor. What a lioness!!! Pray that this baby comes on out. The midwife is considering breaking the water. We are first trying some alternative birthing positions.

Dec 27 @ 1400 hours …. Contractions very strong, Anne has been on her hands and knees last two hours pushing. She slept maybe 30 minutes, been up all night. I do not know how she does it. I fell asleep – men are the weaker ones, this process convinces me of that. (At least this man is.) The doula just checked Anne .(Actually she is a monitrice, meaning a doula who is a registered nurse.) Cervix thinner, baby much lower, 6 cm dialation. Doula can feel the baby’s head. Midwife has decided to come now. My full time job is now to rub and massage Anne’s lower back. We are heading toward a crescendo.

Dec 27 @ 10 am — Anne is resting and the process seems to be stalling once again. The babe’s heartbeat remains strong and it is still moving quite a bit. Pray that Anne is able to sleep and so regain the strength that she will need to push when that time comes …. if it comes today. The doula and midwife are not positive that today is the day yet. “This sort of pattern can stop and go for quite some time.” Here is more Iona while we wait.

Dec 27 @ 7:45 am — Doula says the babe’s heartbeat still strong, all looks a-ok. Anne is still laboring away. Listening to Iona, a great Irish band that my very good friend and mentor at constititutional law, Bruce Green, turned me onto many years ago. Bruce and Deb were present for the birth of my firstborn. Wish you were both here today, Texas is so far away! Here is some Iona for all to appreciate.

Dec 27 @ 6:30 am — the doula has arrived and concluded her initial exam. The baby was face front last week (posterior position), which is not optimal and NOT pictured to the right. The baby is now face back (i.e. anterior, back against Anne’s bell button), which is much better. See picture. All of the premature labor that Anne has suffered through was the baby getting turned around. The baby was kicking up a storm last night, likely not all that excited about Anne’s body rotating him/her on his/her crown against the exit door.

Vivaldi Four Seasons is on the c.d. Same music that our firstborn came into the world to.

The doula says it still might be many hours, for Anne is only dialated at 3 or 4 cm, need to get to 10 to float our baby down the most important canal on earth.

December 27 @ 5:45 am The doula and midwife have been called. We expect the doula (birthing nurse) to arrive in the next few minutes. Anne’s contractions are heavy and frequent. We have passed the point of no return on this birth. My fifth child shall be born today.

December 26 @ 23:59 hours: Anne is laboring harder tonight than any of the previous nights. She thinks the baby will come in the next 12 hours. Please pray for us.

Bryan

1700 hours: Contractions minimal all afternoon, now starting up strong again. Anne was up and around again in the afternoon, as has been her habit since the stronger contractions started. They exhibit a rather predictable rhythym. Maybe culminating in birth tonight?

Dec 26, 1230 hours update … very strong contractions again last night and this morning, and then they fade. Anne reports contractions as strong as any she has had outside the final push stage … but the birth pangs then go minimal.

It is all making me appreciate the professionalism of the birth process. And why it simply had to be done. In a pre-modernist world, when men made livable wages (or worked in the fields toiling away) and women did not have to work outside the home to support the family, women could support women in the drawn out birth process. Time was not money then, and if it took days and days to have a baby, so be it. The women folk held each other up through the process while the men folk worked away.

It was community. Not “friends,” not “immediate family,” but true community. Cousins, cousins in law, distant cousins, distant inlaws, etc and etc. The village.

Not nowadays. Nowadays time is money, and no one, man or woman, can sit around holding a pregnant gal’s hand while she goes through a lengthy birth process. Community is lost. Women chose to go to work outside the home, and then, as the economy was rotted out from the inside by free trade and other such anti-nationalist doctrines, women simply had to work. Time became money for us all. We had no room for community anymore, we became urbanites, one and all. Cosmopolitans. No time for a drawn out labor, let us get that pregnant mom to the hospital and get that baby out with the efficiency of an industrial process. Who needs natural labor? Who needs natural childbirth? Put men in charge, and it is “lights, cameras, action!!!” Wrench that kid out, or cut that kid out, and get back to the business of business in America. (C-sections have gone through the roof in the past decades – the perfect planned delivery where every minute is minimized though assembly line efficiency.)

We are slower here at the Brown homestead. Much slower. And it is boring this man to death!!!

12/25/0700 update below (and 0710) (and 0930) (and 1200) (and 1800)(and 2030)

December 25 is upon us and still no baby from my lovely Anne, pictured here on a far less holy day. Annie is sleeping soundly at this time. Grandma and Grandpa Brown have the kids.

Anne had real birth pains — even big ones — that proved unavailing between 4 – 7 am Monday and 4 – 7 am Tuesday. It may very well be that the baby will arrive in four or six hours or so.

The false starts of the past two days brought Sacred Scripture to my mind. Jesus talked of false starts, birth pang-like false starts that would herald both the destruction of the second temple (in AD 70) and his Second Coming (one fine day in the future).

In other words, we would see foreshadowings that spoke of a reality soon to come. Foreshadowings like WWI & WWII and the present worldwide economic meltdown and the persecution of the faithful by statist bureacrats, be it in Soviet Russia, Cuba or Indianapolis. Here is how the King of the Universe put it:

The Gospel of Saint Mark at chapter 13:
3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled?” 5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 6 “Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and will mislead many. 7 “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end. 8 “For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
9 “But be on your guard; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them10 “The gospel must first be preached to all the nations. 11 “When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. 12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. 13 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.

I have found the above and the following from Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary to grant me solace as I put the Left’s ongoing harassment of me in perspective:

13:5-13 Our Lord Jesus, in reply to the disciples’ question, does not so much satisfy their curiosity as direct their consciences. When many are deceived, we should thereby be awakened to look to ourselves. And the disciples of Christ, if it be not their own fault, may enjoy holy security and peace of mind, when all around is in disorder. But they must take heed that they are not drawn away from Christ and their duty to him, by the sufferings they will meet with for his sake. They shall be hated of all men: trouble enough! Yet the work they were called to should be carried on and prosper. Though they may be crushed and borne down, the gospel cannot be. The salvation promised is more than deliverance from evil, it is everlasting blessedness.

Yea and amen! May the work of the ArchAngel Institute carry on and prosper no matter what comes of me in the future.

This is all dramatic foreshadowing. I am awaiting child number five, and that number has a special meaning for me. More on that after we get this baby born. Just remember child number five for later reference.

Look for an update in the morning as to Anne’s condition. Any suggestions on what to name a Christmas baby?

Merry Christ*mas …. thanks be to YHWH for Christ and His Mass.

Bryan
p.s. Want to know more about what the Church teaches on the Second Coming? Click here.

0700 Christmas morning…Anne’s hard contractions started at 2:30 (thankfully she did not tell me that until she woke me up at 6:30). She is laboring now, about every ten minutes and strong enough to get her out of bed. We are debating whether to call the midwife. Well, she is debating. I say call now. It is not that I “don’t know nothin’ about birthing no babies,” for this is our third outside a hospital. The previous two were, however, at the Birth Center in Topeka, Kansas, a wonderful place with no parallel in northeast Indiana. There I had plenty of help from dulas. Oh well, best do the best I can. I think I will put some hot water on. I think I will use the coffee maker and some ground up beans.

More later …. it sure looks to me like God is sending us a Christmas baby. Here is an interesting article to read while waiting with us …..

0710 update: Anne is on the telly with the midwife right now. Anne is calm, cool and collected. She is my lioness and hero. Having a contraction in the middle of the telly call, having to stop talking and breath through it. She is asking “when to push” questions — not good for me. Did I say that I “don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies” yet? Someone might need to come slap me, Dad.

0930 update …. Anne still sleeping. Contractions continue. She jumps up every 10 minutes or so, standing bent over the bed with arms spread far apart on the bed, breathing and some moaning, and then back in bed to sleep until the next one comes. My job has been far too easy to date. “Clean the kitchen, get me some grape juice.”

1200 update … My princess asked for breakfast and I got an “A” on that project. Now she is up and walking around the house, on the telly with the midwife again right now. When she is horizontal the pangs continue, when she gets up they then seem to abate. Makes me think in evolutionary patterns. The lioness must be up hunting until the time to give birth, at which time her body tells her to lay down and then her body moves the cubs toward the exit. Should I make my lioness lay down or allow her to freely roam? I guess I will trust her on that call. And keep praying.

The midwife says everything that Anne is relating is normal and that all appears to be going according to the Divine Plan. The birth process has been “professionalized” the past 50 years, a great boom for the medical profession. The Divine Plan worked for aeons before that. Anne’s most extensive brush with the professional system ended in a c-section (baby #2) and, a year later, complications from that “routine surgery” that darn near killed her. Indeed, we spent the week following Christmas of 2002 in a Kansas hospital — there while visiting Topeka for Christmas (we lived in Tupelo). Anne had internal scar tissue (adhesions) from the c-section one year earlier, and suffered much pain from both the c-section and the $40,000 surgery one year later to repair the scar tissue from the c-section. She never wants to go through either again.

Not to mention that either one would now ruin us economically and force us into bankruptcy, like so many Americans. From a bad turn of events to uninsured status to huge medical bills to economic dissolution to loss of the home to divorce. It is a pattern we are all hearing too much about. God help those so suffering this Christmas Day.

And so here we are, at home giving birth. No accelerants, nothing artificial. Anne is on her way to her third “earth birth,” the most earthy one yet. She takes no drugs at all for the pain. Not even an aspirin. She and I are so different that way! I would want morphine at the minimum! Pray for my lioness, she is the bravest person that I know.

We are going to go get our kids and let them open Santa’s bounty in the next hour. What a Christmas to remember!

Next update at 1800 hours.

p.s. Keith, I cropped out the GR like you asked. Who says I am not easy to work with?

1800 Glory to God in the Highest! We just finished our family Christmas. The kids are 11, 7, 5 & 2, such wonderful ages. All are now playing with the toys they received. Our 11 year old is so innocent, and happy to play with action figures with his little brothers. No electric “toys” this year. As the Pope teaches, too many of those devices push us apart into self-imposed solitary confinement. I thank God for my children and the blessings that we share this special day as a family united in He Who was born in abject poverty and raised to Rule the universe.

As for my lioness, she took the day off from laboring but is now back at it. Seems to be coming faster and harder than anytime before. While the window is rapidly closing, it does appear that a Christmas day birth may yet be in the cards. Thanks to all who are praying and visiting. Our traffic is up, many are stopping by to take in this virtual birth process. Please pray for Anne and Fidget. (the name will change after the sex is verified. stay tuned.)

The Oh Come, Oh come that I listed earlier just came on FM 88.3. Nice. Here it is again, Keith, since you could not get the previous link to work.

Here is the address to cut and paste if the hyperlink does not fire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMGKUTUPMAU&feature=related

2030 update … Anne is resting and still having some strong contractions. Note the video referenced above. Here is a link explaining the blood dripping into the chalice and scrubbed onto the doorposts. http://www.archangelinstitute.org/passover-readings-in-the-raphael-division/

Updates at end of article …#4, 12/24/1800

Christmas is the celebration of life. Bryan and Anne must pause this day to celebrate not just the Life of the World, but the life that has been given to us. As this post goes up Anne is entering labor — for the fifth time in her life.

The question begs to be asked in the abortion-minded culture. Is the child pictured at left a “person?” No, not under American law. Not until its full body exits from Anne.

Yet this baby in the womb responds to voices and will recognize Anne’s voice when born.

I (Bryan) was told, repeatedly, that I would never father children. One doctor went so far as to tell me that I was sterile as an army mule. I still have his report, showing that on all known metrics (count, motility, morphology) it was statistically impossible for me to have children.

Anne married me in faith, seemingly giving up her lifelong dream to have children.

Then a miracle happened. I went forward at a healing Mass at Star of the Seas parish in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Father William Sullivan anointed my palms with oil. I felt a warm sensation rush down my back.

Anne and I now have five children. This post ends with a picture of four of those precious gifts from God. Anne is now, at this hour, in labor as we have our fifth. That babe’s first picture will be posted on this website within hours of birth.

We are in a rented mobile home giving birth and doing so without health insurance, thanks, in large part, to my failure to be licensed to practice law in Indiana.

I will have more to say on that topic soon. I will share this much today: One of the many counselors that the Indiana judiciary has forced me to see as a prerequisite to being considered for license (they still might say no or not yet, once again) recently shared with me that the Indiana authorities are concerned, given my past in Christian activism, about the question of whether I will follow their law or own my interpretation of God’s law. The state’s designated fact finder asked me if I could see that my case was similar to the situation that faced the “Early Church?” “Yes,” I replied, “Caesar hates me.” The counselor laughed and replied “They just do not know what to do with you, Bryan.” This same state-ordained inquisitor later told me that my problem was that I “march to the beat of a Divine drummer.” (An interesting diagnosis at Christmas, no?)

At the risk of drawing parallels that touch upon sacrilegious, my fifth child will be born in the modern American equivalent of a stable this Christmas thanks, in large part, to this modern Caesar and its modernist misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian committed to chivalry. This modern Caesar is realized in both the Indiana judiciary and in the Left’s 2006 political campaign against me in Kansas.

The Left should take great pleasure in my present circumstances! It is a measure of their cultural ascendancy and political power. (By way of example, it was Marxists and others who stood opposed to Natural Law who faced similar hurdles and questions about their worldview from state bars a mere fifty years ago. No more, they are golden thanks to the political correctness movement. It is now Christians who act upon their faith who are suspect.) (Click on the blue hyperlinks for meaty posts on the aforementioned topics.)

Please pray for Anne’s safety, the safety of the baby now in the process of entering the birth canal, and my situation with the Indiana Supreme Court. We need more miracles.

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and rescue captive Israel.

update at 11:59 pm, dec 23. A slow labor keeps rolling. The babe is not likely to make an entrance in the next few hours.

Here is a fine Christmas treat. Click on it and be blessed. (Disclaimer for government bureaucrats and leftists….the video advocates mixing government and religion….as does the core of the Gospel.)

(I play my drum for Him, barummadumdum)

12/24 update… Anne awoke to stronger contractions every 10 minutes at 4:30 am, called the midwife at 5:30 am. She is holding for closer contractions. Anne believes that today is the day to have this baby. Stay tuned.

12/24 @ noon update …. Anne’s contractions have once again waned. We do have a pattern, albeit it is a slow train coming. The midwife is on standby. Please continue holding Anne and “Fidget” up in prayer. We are off to Mass at 4 p.m. if all remains calm. Will update this post again around 6 pm

12/24/1800 Christmas Mass was nice, Father Seculoff celebrating. He is golden. No Brown bambino at Mass. Light contractions continue. We are now cooking our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with the kids. Will update at midnight if no baby before that time. I wonder if the midwife is praying for Anne to hold out past Christmas?