Celebrating Sadie

I know it's Thanksgiving, but I could not resist a quick post about Sadie since her birthday falls on the holiday this year. I can't believe my baby [who isn't the baby anymore] is two. It's just moving too fast!!

We had a celebration dinner Tuesday night with my parents and Sadie was a little bit frustrated while she waited for us to light the candle...



She understood a little better tonight and was all smiles as we lit the candle and sang happy birthday to her.

She was excited to get the cake in hand though!

The girl loves cake! Most of it ended up crumbled in her hands and her lap, but she was having a big old time.

Happy birthday, sweet girl. We love you and we're so glad you're part of our family!

It's not a photo shoot unless someone is crying...

Sadie wanted to wear all the doctor stuff so we were just going to roll with it for the pictures but then then plastic tweezers fell off her fingers and it was just too much...



Mae wasn't afraid to chime in either...

I think the look on Ella's face says it all...we're done!

Baby Mae and the case of the empty wipe containers

It's time for a diaper change, and Mae and I are curious about where her wipes are...



Sadie, the wipe swiper, strikes again.

I've resorted to keeping the wipes up on a high shelf because she emptied out two entire packages in the course of one afternoon! It's really cute to watch her change her baby doll's diapers though :)

a-MAE-zing

I can't believe that I really thought Mae might be our last baby. I just can. not. get. enough. of this baby goodness. So awesome!

Better Late?

I meant to post this yesterday in Honor of Veteran's Day, but it just didn't happen. Bo's school does a really neat Veteran's Day Program every year, and I decided to bring the kids and join Bo for the program.

What an awesome opportunity to honor those who have fought and continue to fight for our country. Bo and his classmates were so cute with their waving flags. They were all singing too!

So handsome (I hate that it's blurry)...

We all enjoyed the beginning of the program.

I should add there was only one reason this was even close to successful.



Gigi met us there and helped me wrangle kids. Then, she took the middles out of the auditorium for the speaker so Bo and I could stay to listen to the speaker. Mae enjoyed napping with me during the talk.

It was a really neat celebration for those who fight to insure our freedom. I found myself emotional at one point thinking of how much I take for granted in terms of our daily peace and security. It's truly a blessing that I can raise these babies in safety and freedom. Thank you to all those who serve!

Meeting Mae

It seems impossible that we came home from the hospital a week ago, but I think I'm adding it to the list of things I can't get my mind around these days...

Impossible Mae will be 10 days old tomorrow.
Impossible we have five little ones.
Impossible we have a first grader.
Impossible we've been married almost a decade.

Amazing the ways God has blessed us in ways big and small!

I love these shots of the kids meeting Mae for the first time. They didn't know anything when they came to the hospital and it was so much fun to be excited with them as they found out the baby was a girl! A huge thanks to my mom for bringing them up to the hospital after a very late night and keeping all the details a surprise!

Labor Day: BABY!

As you can imagine, there aren't many pictures of me at this point. We started talking about what the next step should be.

I had thought a lot [and J and I had talked a lot] about not getting an epidural this go round. There were lots of reasons that I felt compelled to do it. Some of the motivation was because the last two epidurals I had were not the best and I spent longer being numb than I would have liked. There were also a lot of emotional layers to my last experience with Sadie, and I think I wanted to differentiate this experience from that one. At the very least, I knew that I wanted a much lighter dose of meds than I'd had in the past.

I made the decision to wait on having the midwife break my water and go ahead with the epidural, so it was around 12:20 AM when they called the anesthesiologist. He came in, took a look at my chart, and immediately expressed some concerns about my blood platelet level. It was low [according to my chart] at my 28 week blood test, but his concern was that it was even lower when they admitted me that evening. He said he needed them to check the level again because if it had dropped any more it was too risky to do the epidural. The platelets help the blood clot properly and lower levels can lead to a bruise around the spinal column. Not good.

They did another blood draw and headed out to the lab, but things were pretty intense for me at that point. It was around 12:30 AM and I asked the midwife to check me again.

"9 cm" she said definitively.
How long for the blood test results?
"15 minutes."
Then please just go ahead and break my water.

[We found out later that my platelets had dropped again so the epidural would definitely have been a no go. I was glad I had mentally (sort of)prepared for labor without it.]

The next 30 minutes is a blur and yet seems so clear at the same time. I'm still not sure how it was only 30 minutes because it felt like an eternity!

I waited 3 contractions while she set up for the baby because she felt pretty certain it would happen fast.
I labored 4 or 5 more contractions and then it was time to push.
I pushed for 3 contractions and then she was here.

J was holding her up saying "do you see? do you see what it is? It's a girl!"
It was awesome in that moment. I was so glad I waited to know. I needed that extra motivation to get her out! At one point I was doubting my ability to actually push her out and the one thought that kept me going was that I had to know if we had another little boy or little girl.

And even the fifth time, it is absolutely impossible to get my mind around. There is such a miraculousness about childbirth and a baby. It is amazing. I love these pictures that my mom was able to capture. J and I were both far too overwhelmed in those moments to think about pictures but they are priceless.



























Welcome to the world sweet Mae. We love you so!

Labor Day: Active Labor

I got the kids settled in for naps at my parents and mom, Emily, and I sat down to visit. Well, they sat down, but I stayed on my feet in the hopes of potentially helping labor along. I had a few contractions here and there, but nothing regular was going on so I didn't say anything. Around 2:30, things started to get a little more regular and I actually mentioned it to my mom and Emily. Three contractions later they started a chart to time how long and how often the contractions were happening.

I was laughing because I told them that I didn't really want to know what was on the chart but they were welcome to keep track. I texted J just to let him know that he should be available but assured him that there was no need to rush home from work at this point.

By 5:30 or so, Ella was in on the charting and she was having a blast working the stopwatch on Gigi's iphone. J left work a little early and got to my parents right about the time the contractions moved to every 3 or 4 minutes and they were lasting about 90 seconds.



J ate a little dinner [super delicious dinner that my mom's discipleship group brought over for everyone] and I had a roll and some fruit before we decided to head to the hospital. I really did not want to go quite yet, but everyone was insistent that we go ahead and go. I knew I wasn't really close, but we weren't sure about the traffic situation so we headed out.

One last shot of our party of six.



Wouldn't you know that almost as soon as we got in the car, my contractions almost completely stopped. Crazy! I think I had three [very mild] contractions on our way to the hospital. We spent 20 minutes walking around the parking deck at the hospital before we went inside. That was enough time that things picked back up and were regular again. I knew I still had a ways to go though because I was still talking and walking through each contraction.

We managed to get to the hospital right at the shift change, so things moved very slowly! It was 9:30 PM before I was checked by the midwife and got my IV. I was 4 cm and 90% at that point, so we figured we were going to be there for a while before the baby. The midwife left to take care of another delivery with the promise that she would come back at 11:30 PM to check me again and consider breaking my water.


We were definitely taking it easy.

My parents came up to the hospital after feeding the kids dinner and getting them all in the bed. I was so glad my brother and sister in law were in town because they stayed with all the sleeping babes so they could come and sit with us.

My wonderful discipleship group leader, Barbara, came to visit and pray.


And so did Rachael.


We had a big old time!



We laughed and talked and everyone else got to eat the awesome trail mix Rachael brought.

I did a little of this every few minutes.



11:30 PM came and went without any visit from the midwife. I was starting to get more uncomfortable and certainly was wishing that she would come to check on me. Just before midnight the nurse came in to let us know the midwife was finishing a delivery and I asked her to go ahead and check me. I was pretty certain that I was starting to transition. I've gotten an epidural between 7 and 8 cm every time, so I knew that if I wasn't there already I was getting pretty close.

Around 12:10 AM, before the nurse had a chance to check, the midwife showed up. Sure enough, I was right at 7 cm.

That's when things got more interesting...