More moments captured

Keenan has definitely turned out to be the protector brother!! Our first evening home our pastor’s wife was holding Shand-Renee when she started fussing a little… This is the conversation:

K: “You know, the baby is fussing, and the when the baby fusses she wants her mama, so you should give her to my mama”

Maria: “Yes, but she’ll be ok… I’ll just hold the baby till your mom can get her. You know, I’m a mama too!”

K: “Yes, but you aren’t her mama, so I think you should give her to my mom.”

Me: “Its fine sweetie. Maria knows how to hold a baby, she is a mommy too, and I’ll get Shand in a minute”

K: – to Maria “OK, but you need to be careful not to drop her”

I was dying laughing inside and a little apologetic to our poor visitors, who apparently are not to be trusted with this precious life!! 🙂

Keenan is the official pacifier holder in the car… a job he takes very seriously… he won’t even eat while he holds it in. He is very attentive!! I hadn’t planned on pacifiers… they never gave us one in the hospital, and I didn’t have any in the house… after a week of bleeding and cracked nipples and a baby that wanted to nurse constantly, I sent Bryan to the store the next morning to buy ourselves some pacifiers (dummies – for my Aussie readers!)

A couple days into being home I sent Bryan to the store (yet again – poor guy!) to buy me some pads. He called incredibly confused from the feminine aisle… WHAT TO GET! I tried to describe to him what I needed… He comes home from the store with THIS: Costco size (56 of them!) bag of Serenity pads for leaking bladders!!! LOL My mother in law and I were about rolling on the floor laughing at the poor man!!

I have been amazed at the grace God has given me for patience for the boys. After their 3 day stint at the grandparents watching too much TV, coupled with me being gone, then bringing home a baby, and being sick for the first week and half… they were incredibly wily and inattentive and loud and unfocused…

I was really able to drop life and plug in as many precious moments with them in between all my junk and feeding / diapering the baby. God has been so so SO good… I am overwhelmed at the strength He has doled out and the love He has poured into me for my little family. Here are a few more pics. Her first bath… kind of. Her belly button thingy came off, but there was still stuff there, so I didn’t want to submerge her. This is the first time I’ve ever had to notice that stuff!! They were always in the hospital before!!

This is a totally unposed picture… the boys each had a comb and were grooming their little sister!! It was the funniest thing to me!! Isn’t this next picture just exactly what you’d imagine life could be like… if only I had more sleep and time… Aah… to live to sleep and eat!

Can you believe it? 2 weeks old already!! Here is Thaddeus cooing to her and loving on her…

That is NOT gas!! This girl is such a little social bug… she is so cute and loves to look around at us.

Finally pics of the birth day

And hopefully later this evening pics of the last couple weeks…

I don’t know if the camera captured it… but the look of absolute wonder and awe on Keenan’s face was priceless.  This boy, who LOVES the camera, was completely unaware of it and had eyes only for the baby!  While we struggled to settle on a name, Keenan told everyone her name was Rachel… which is how it ended up being there.  We decided to let him spell it too! 🙂

Thaddeus’ first words were… “peekaboo” and he wanted to see the feet so he could count the toes and then do “This little piggy went to market” He was pretty overwhelmed… I looked absolutely shocking so it no surprise!  I had red dots covering my forehead and cheeks, all over my shoulders and down my back, and chest.  Apparently I was a vigorous pusher!!

Just look at his stunned expression! 🙂

  Now we get the smile.  Thaddeus thought I had to drink lots of milk for it to come out my breasts… LOL And when I didn’t want to pick him he asked if it was because I had “fat elbows” indicating my chest!!

Bryan is enthralled.  It’s precious.  Its been a long two weeks.  I had the worst road of constipation anyone has ever had I am sure… The only reason we weren’t in the ER is because I have a husband who is a nurse, who works at an “Extended Care Center” where they deal with issues like that regularly… yeah. My husband rocks… he is the best… and i have NO dignity left, although he still treats me as his beautiful amazing bride… Enough said.

That ordeal went on through Friday, then Saturday I came down with mastitis that the regular antibiotics didn’t kick, and I ended up in the ER on Monday, where I got new antibiotics… and those are now finished, but no one is convinced it is completely kicked, so I just started a new round to make sure.

I am STARTING to feel like a normal person who is just tired.  Speaking of.  I am going to nap, and you MUST come back for some more pictures… there are some beautiful ones of this little princess!!

39 weeks… May 5

and its a GIRL!!

for the bare basic details:

7 lbs 7 oz

20 1/2 inches long

lots of dark brown wavy hair

V-BAC

Hospital arrival: 5:30 am (with broken waters – contractions starting to be noticable)

Baby arrival: 9:33 am (with some nasty tearing – but yes, even with that I still think its better than a C-section!)

More details and pics later.

OH! almost forgot… NAME:

Shand-Renee Raichell Morris – … we’ll call her Shand, Keenan (7yr) will call her Rachel like he always has, spelled in his own unique way!

All you lovely girlfriends…

Thanks for all the great comments and encouragement girls!!

I almost feel like a new, first time mom again… It has been 4 years, and I kind of forget how all this stuff works! I was reading tonight all about that post-partum period… glad I did that so I wasn’t surprised when I was reintroduced to the discomfort and pain of those first couple weeks after giving birth… whether it is surgical or natural… speaking of natural…

Keenan is always wanting to know how they are going to cut the baby out of my tummy (why should it be any other way, after all he and brother came out that way!)  Thaddeus thought it might come out my mouth!! 🙂 or if it would just my tummy would just pop open… (it does feel like that at times!)

I told them mommy’s have special places for babies to come out… down there (and I just waved in the general area)… Thaddeus says “Like your butts? Just kidding mama!!” (ha ha ha!!! He thought he made a grand joke!!) 🙂 And then, as it usually does, the conversation moved on to much more pleasant things!!

The kids were giggling over my belly last night at bedtime, talking to baby and blowing raspberries on my belly button (you know… the only access they have to in there!!)  They are getting so excited… as am I!!  So excited I decided to start planting my bulbs… 🙂

no baby yet…

I got a little excited and started downing Evening Primrose Oil… it DOES work… as in, it will make you contract… regularly even!  However, it will not put you into labor!!  It will just send you to the hospital at 11pm, only to come home again at 1:30 am, thoroughly molested by a rough nurse, with back spasms from lying on your side, at an angle, hooked up to monitors, thoroughly exhausted…

THANK YOU to my fabulous Dr who prescribed me an Ambien for the night… so I had a lovely relaxed sleep in my own bed… with no children to wake me up in the morning since they were still at the grandparents from the evening before.

Since then I have contracted… a lot… baby has DEFINITELY dropped… and we wait.  My Dr is out of town for the week, so if I have this baby in the next week I quite possibly, and probably, won’t get my V-BAC… but God knows that too!!!  I have let Him know MULTITUDES of times my heart’s desire… and it is time to let it go and quit reminding Him!!

I have a scattered, one-track brain at the moment… if that is possible? SO eventually I assume I’ll be back with some deeper thoughts than the length of my cervix!