Our Newest Princess

Here she is! Our little miracle baby.

Our newest princess was "over-baked," so I got induced. I had decided pretty early on that I was just going to let her come when she was ready, but by the time I was about 38 1/2 weeks, I changed my mind. 

We got to the hospital around 5:30am and after a million questions and lots of paperwork they were ready to start my pitocin around 7:30am. Three exploded veins later and they finally gave up on the large needles in the arm and opted for a small one in the hand. I still have some pretty nasty bruising, but it's slowly going away. They started my IV and the contractions came almost immediately. I only waited about 15 minutes before deciding I wanted my epidural, and that was 15 minutes too long.

I had prayed for this baby to come quickly... well my prayer was answered... next time I'll be a little more specific. 

Two epidurals later and neither one of them took. I had no desire to have a natural birth, but that wasn't really an option at this point. She was coming!

 She came so quickly they had to keep telling me not to push because the doctor wasn't there yet...haha...right. He barely made it in the room. He later told us he ran to get there. One push later and she was here! 

Start to finish from the time my IV started until she was here was less than two hours!

I had some other issues that have made healing a slow process, but regardless of all of those things, she came out completely perfect.

I told my parents they could come in the room and hang out with us after I got my epidural, but she came so fast the next thing they knew they were holding her!

It was definitely a completely different experience than with R and I would be lying if I said that I didn't prefer to have the epidural. More power to all of you moms out there choosing a natural birth, but I think I liked it better when someone had to tell me I was having a contraction. 

I was so blessed to have my sister in law and another friend there as my nurses with this delivery. It's always much more peaceful knowing there are people around watching out for your best interests. 

And now we are a family of FIVE! I can't believe I have three kids. Three beautiful little girls. It's just surreal and perfect. I know Jeff would love to have "his boy" someday, but he is an absolutely amazing daddy to these little girls. 

(Look at R next to her daddy in this pic...They look so much alike!)

My healing has been slow. My emotions have been up and down. And I'm not going to lie, having three, three and under is hard! I have only gone through actually having a baby once before and when you only have one, you can take as long as you want to heal. R would just lay beside me on the bed and sleep while I was recovering from my first pregnancy. Then with Baby Girl, well there was no recovery. But with baby #3 I have two VERY active toddlers who don't understand why mommy needs to sleep or why mommy can't help them with their every whim. 

I know adjusting to our life with three kids may take a little while, but just look at this face. 

When my house gets crazy or I get overwhelmed, all I have to do is hold this little life against my chest and remind myself that the doctors told me I would never get to meet her. I cling to my miracle baby as a reminder that God is faithful even when it all seems too much. It's easy to forget the miracles after they've happened. It's easy to forget all that God has already done for you, but I am choosing to use her not just as a reminder of His past goodness, but of His promise that 

The Best is Yet to Come.

What to do in the Waiting

Waiting. That's all it seems like we're doing around here these days. Tomorrow will officially be our little one's due date, and yet contrary to what I thought months ago when the contractions started... we are STILL waiting.

I've always said that I need her to be an indian because I already have enough chiefs in this house, so hopefully this just means that she will be my laid back child. I (literally) have two first born children and they BOTH act like it, so here's to hoping!

It's been weeks at this point since I've gotten a good night's sleep. I honestly believe that I will sleep better with a newborn than I do right now. I get up no less than a dozen times a night for one thing or another and Jeff assures me that I have taken up snoring (oh great!). But in less than THREE days our little family of four will become a family of five. In the meantime, we have been doing any and everything we can think of to keep us (mainly me) preoccupied.

I could typically go two days, three if I wanted to push it, without having to get out of the house when the weather is bad. But these days, I will do just about anything to get out of the house every day. I will make up excuses to get us all dressed and out the door. The people at the Target Starbucks know our life story and have been on this baby countdown with us for some time. 

Today we took an extra special adventure though. 

I didn't tell the girls where we were going and we got in the car and headed to get frozen yogurt. They were so excited to get to pick their own toppings and sit at a table just their size.

Baby Girl only ate about half of her yogurt before it became more fun to play with it. She even kicked off her shoes and made herself at home. I didn't mind and the girl running the place was nowhere to be found since we were the only ones in the store (shocker I know, there wasn't a line out the door of the yogurt place on a weekday in February :) ). Poor little girl had a rough time getting out of those cute chairs though and ended up taking a nosedive into the table and we left there with our first bloody nose. Thankfully it didn't last long and our next stop quickly distracted her from any residual pain.

So we left the yogurt store tear stained and a little bloody, but the dollar jewelry store next door made everything right with the world. They each got to pick out a necklace and mama bought them a couple of cute new bows and they were once again in hog heaven! 

Now we're back to waiting! I managed to get in a walk after Jeff got home and R and I spent some much needed time outside while Baby Girl napped. But I guess they are calling for frigid temperatures tomorrow and perhaps even some snow, so no more walks for this mama. But one way or another I will have THREE little girls by Friday at the latest.

Come on out little one! We would love to not have to wait any longer!