Siblings at Birth

We have always welcomed the older siblings at the babies' births. Our oldest daughter, Dawn, has now been to 3 births (she missed her sister, Anne's, because Anne came too fast!). For Little Bit's birth, only our girls were in the room for the actual birth. The boys and my niece, were brought in right after. Here they are right after Little Bit was born.



Here, our midwife, Sharon, is showing the kids the umbilical cord.


The girls and Grandma are getting to hold Little Bit for the very first time!


This part grosses me out. Dawn definitely has a future in the medical field. Our midwife is showing her (and the other girls) the placenta. Dawn was the only one who really got into it - and I mean this literally, see her gloved hands? She was touching, etc. You will never find me doing that!


There you have it! I figure science is covered for the year. :-)

Birth Story

I never feel like I write coherently after having a baby (something about exhaustion), but I will make an attempt at telling the birth story.

Wednesday morning, I had some signs of pre-labor, lost my mucous plug, had more contractions that hurt a little more. That went on all day. I figured it meant I had at most 3 or 4 days before we had the baby. Sometime in the night, I started having pretty regular contractions, they weren't too painful though and were about every 10 minutes - I was actually sleeping between them!

Thursday morning, contractions still about 9-10 minutes apart and I'm dealing with them just fine. This was VERY different from the last 2 labors, so I wasn't sure what was going on. You hear all the time about women going in to the hospital with "false" labor - I figured this was what I was having. I finally called my sister and Doula, Dawn and told her she might as well come over, in case things progressed quickly. (My last 2 labors were pretty fast - dilating from 0-10 in 2 hours or less.) My friend, Marie, called and when I told her what was going on, she encouraged me to at least call the midwife. Since Marie's had 6 kids, I figured she had reason to encourage me in that direction!

Old Man called the midwife, she said, to just come in to the office to check me. Either while we were on the phone or just as we got off, I had a contraction and then my water started leaking. So, off to the hospital. I HATE going to the hospital in labor - I've cried every single time. As I figured, we got there, I was dilated to a 2 (2-1/2??) and my water was leaking. Which meant I was stuck there. GAG. It was about 1:45 when we arrived. Oh, after my water leaked, my contractions did get about 6 minutes apart.

Once at the hospital, my contractions quickly settled into a pattern of about 3-4 minutes apart, lasting 60-90 seconds. Yet, I still felt this was going to take forever. Again, with my previous 2 labors, my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting 90+ seconds! Well, this labor was longer, but definitely more manageable. Do NOT envy a woman with super short labors. I would take a 5 or 6 hours over 2 any day. Just no longer than that. :-) The contractions never got a huge amount closer, stayed very manageable. When I started feeling like I needed to push I really felt that I was convincing myself it was time when it really wasn't. It didn't feel like I'd had an awful transition, the contractions were bad, but I was chatting with Dawn, the midwife and the nurse in between each one. Basically, it had been hard, but not hard enough yet! I started pushing, things felt like they weren't right, turns out there was still a bag of forewater that needed to break - which it did quickly and out Elizabeth came! My first comment was "wow, she's little!" Everyone else's first comment, "she's already pooping!" :-)

There's more to this story that I will post later. All about having kids at the birth and after - yep, I'm weird. :-)

Oh, and since I finally downloaded pictures from my camera, I'll include one of Elizabeth.



I asked David if he wanted to hold the baby and he said, "I want to hold her feet." So, here he is, holding her feet!

BABY!

She's out! :-) Elizabeth Kathryn was born on Sept 11 (the due date I had given her - her "real" date was Sept 10). She's tiny, 7 lbs 3 oz. Cute as a button. I'm thinking about posting the birth story, but we shall see. Time is not something I have lots of right now!

Baby Watch

I'm starting to get the e-mails asking about the baby's arrival. I guess people are starting to wonder if she has arrived yet or not - due to my lack of communication. :-) Well, no baby yet is the news. I'm officially due on Thursday and my baby's usually come a few days after the due date on their own. You can pray that I can have patience to let this baby come when God wants her to and not to pursue some alternative labor inducer (herbs, homeopaths, accupressure ...). It's so tempting right now! With all the stress of the move, I haven't gained any weight in the last 8 weeks, so I'm guessing she needs to stay in and get as much nutrition as she can right now.

My Mom is in town right now - thank God for that! David (the 2-1/2 year old) has been showing major signs of potty training readiness - which I have ignored. Mom isn't, so he is potty training! (Yes, we are NUTS - as if moving and a new baby aren't enough!) He has been very successful this morning with the whole thing - pooped on the potty for the first time. Guess Mom will have to stick around for at least another month to make sure this lasts. :-)

We've been in the house 3 weeks now. Most things are unpacked. No pictures up yet. Still working to get organized. I'm basically doing nothing with the whole thing. Old Man is under extra stress due to that!

House in Maryland - still not sold or rented, although there is supposed to be an offer coming through for a lease to own thingy. We shall see.

That's all the news today! Hope everyone is doing great! :-)

Moving In

Yes, I realize that I haven't been blogging. Something to do with no internet access at my aunt's, closing on a house, moving into a house, no internet access here for a while and unpacking boxes. That would be the short version of our lives the last few weeks. A little longer update ...

We closed on the house on August 15 - praise God! Then we did the nutty thing and camped out in the new house over the weekend. My sister painted the girls' room (GREEN - very very green) on Saturday and my good friend, Claudia, shelf papered my entire kitchen Saturday evening (while I sat on the floor and watched). Our household goods arrived on Monday. Damaged furniture, missing bed supports, grill, lawnmower and David's battery operated 4-wheeler (they found all but the bed supports), many things arrived without tags - all in all, a fairly typical military move. Old Man worked 1/2 days, I attempted to get things unpacked. Claudia, my sister and my cousin Ranee all came over on different days and helped. We got most of the upstairs done by Friday. But then we stalled - the basement was overwhelming. Thank God for good friends - Claudia came over Friday night and saved us. She helped us arrange the furniture and unpack numerous boxes. We truly are down to the school room and garage that need major work. Now, things are still disorganized. Not a picture on the walls. But, Old Man is off work for the next couple days, so we should get the school room done too.

Pregnancy, you ask? Well, I'm 37-1/2 weeks. Exhausted, contracting, fatigued, drained ... You can imagine how I feel right now. Another thing Claudia helped me do was to calm my panic over being completely unready for the baby to arrive. We got out the baby clothes, cleaned the diaper bag, figured out the car seat and decided what else I needed. (Diapers!) My Mom arrives on Wednesday, Thursday I will be 38 weeks. I typically go full term, so we expect the baby to arrive closer to 40 weeks. While I physically don't like that thought, emotionally and mentally need her to wait to arrive!

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts! We will survive. :-) The biggest thing is that God has shown himself faithful and good in all of this.

Better run, we only have one computer working with the internet and Old Man needs this one. Hope you are all doing great - my blog reading has been seriously curtailed!

House

We are scheduled to close on the house here on August 15!!!! I cannot tell you how amazing this is - God really is at work here for us.

We started school this week, a bit. So far it's going well. Swimming lessons finished today. All the kids did great. Even after Joseph's enormous fit the first day, he jumped off the big diving board into the deep end today. The recommended that Dawn find a diving team - no surprise. Many gymnasts become divers. They all had fun.

Not much else to tell today. Just thought you could all rejoice with us at God's faithfulness!

Belly Pictures

My sister, Dawn (the real Dawn, not my daughter Dawn - just to confuse you all quite a bit), is a doula here in Colorado. She is just starting out, so is setting up her website. She needed a "model" to put some belly pictures on her website. Since her "little" sister just moved to the area and is HUGELY pregnant, she is taking advantage of my belly! :-) I will link to her website once it is up and running. For now, here are a couple pictures. She has a friend here who is from India and did a really cool henna tattoo on my belly. So, if you don't like to see pregnant bellies, don't look! :-) (This was a week ago or so, so I was 33 weeks pregnant at the time.)