The doctor said she is “perfect and get calm”. Well, it is wonderful when the doctor confirms what you already knew!  He commented on how short they had cut her umbilical cord, which I too had noticed. It doesn’t even stick out of her belly button. Tonight her umvilical cord was bleeding, but it stopped quickly and wasn’t a bunch of blood, so we will watch it through the night and if it starts again we will take her in. Praying it doesn’t and that it was just part of the healing process for her.

Well, as you recall, this past fall, our town suffered horrible damage from fire. Catastrophic loss of homes and property. Well, that was after months of terrible drought. Then overnight last night we received over 5″ of rain!  I think my friend said it right when she mentioned that first we had Sodom and Gomorrah and then Noah’s Flood, throw in a drought first and we are working our way through the Old Testament.

On the upside, I am already home from the hospital, which is good since the road from Bastrop to Austin was closed this morning due to flooding. I would have been very unhappy to have been stuck at the hospital!

Pictures….um, yeah.  Recovery is not going as smoothly as in the past. I am sore in ways I didn’t know were possible and other ways that I knew were possible but had never experienced before. All I can say is OUCH!  But, I will recover and having a beautiful baby girl to admire and hold makes the process totally worth it!  I will post pictures once I make it to my desktop computer and can sit and upload them!! I included one photo from my phone of Josephine at just after 11:40 this morning, officially 2 days old!

When Jerry came to the hospital this morning, he had all five of our wonderful older children with him. Boy, were those some priceless smiles and squeals of joy when they came into our room!  Baby Josie! Little baby!  Mommy!!!

They all washed their hands so they could see her and hold her. Having our whole family together enjoying this new precious miracle of a blessed new life is wonderful!  My heart is so very happy.

That was how long from when my nurse called my OB to tell her I was completely dilated to when baby was born!!

It’s a GIRL!!!

Josephine Helene was born at 11:40 AM. She is 19″ long and weighed 7 lbs 11 oz.  She has a head full of very dark brown hair.
We spent the night at the hospital and the pitocin was started at 6 AM. I was 2.5-3 cm dilated at that point. At about 7:30 when my OB came in to check on me, I was 3 cm dilated and baby was not engaged, baby was just floating high up so they could not break my bag of water. So, we waited.

I got an epidural around 9.  My OB came to the room and broke my water at 10:20 and at that point I was still only 3-4 cm dilated. In my head I thought quietly that this day might be long if things didn’t pick up pace. I continued praying for things to go smoothly and safely.

I tried to rest around 10:40 for a few minutes. Around 11:10 I told Jerry that I was feeling much more intense pressure with each contraction. They had gone from every 3 minutes to every 2 minutes also. Tony was very interested in watching the monitors. My nurse came in around 11:25 and wanted to put the oxygen on me because baby was having some deep heart decellerations with each contraction. When I mentioned the extreme pressure she decided to check me first. I had been praying for God to help my body progress to bring this baby out!  I was hoping I was maybe a 5-6 at least. To my complete surprise, she said, “well, that is why you have pressure, you are complete!  Now, don’t push!”.

You see, when my OB (who has delivered all 5 of our other children) came in to break my water, she shared that she has a c-section scheduled to start around 11:30/12:00 so if I needed to push while she was in surgery that would be no good!  I assured her that I would work around that.   So, the nurse made the call at 11:30 to tell her I was complete. Then she called in help to get the bed and me all prepped for delivery. Everything went well and 2 contractions, about 1 minute between them, and maybe 6 total pushes and Josephine, our sweet baby Josie, was born at 11:40!!  She is perfect and has all 10 long little fingers with long little fingernails and 10 precious and also long little toes.

My OB let Tony announce “It’s a Girl!”. Then she offered to let him cut the cord. Well, that brought about a very quick and clear “NO!” response. . When things calmed down we asked him about it and he said he was just really surprised right then about how very little she was!  He watched the whole delivery and was in awe of how easily she came out!

So, we have lots of pictures, but the camera cord is at home…sorry!  So, I have shared the only ones on my phone.

All I do know for now is that I have no nesting urge today. 

I am happy that through all of the little quirks and worries of this pregnancy that we have come this far with an active, healthy baby. I am so excited to see if it is a baby boy or a baby girl!!

I wanted to share the pregnancy photos so far…all from my camera phone, so none are great images, but they show the progression.

I shared with the children today, that tomorrow would be their last full day of regular school work for a few weeks.  They were excited to know that a vacation is coming, but are all super excited for the reason!  They can’t wait to meet their new sibling and are all excited that it is just a few days away! 

I think the plan will be to continue reading with them all individually each day and hopefully some math flash cards too while we take a school break and adjust to being a family of 8. It is hard to imagine, just 10.5 years ago Jerry and I got married. We were a family of 2, then 1 year and 3 days later we became a family of 3. Over the course of the next 18 months, we suffered through the loss of 3 babies from miscarriages and then through adoption became a family of 4 and just a few months later, a family of 5. Then 12 months and 2 weeks later, a family of 6. Right before we became a family of 7, we tragically dropped to a family of 5 again, then with the birth of Lilly, we were back to 6!  Sarah made us a beautiful family of 7, and now we are nearing on to 8 and so excited!!

It has been an amazing 10.5 years, but I can’t imagine having done this with anyone other than my fantastic husband, Jerry. I love you more than words can say and I can’t wait for the arrival of our newest miracle!