Baby, Darling

Welcome Baby Gray!
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5:12pm.
6lbs 9 ounces.
19 inches long.
Dark hair.
Thumb sucker.
Adorable.

Yay Breah for joining the no-epidural club!

All of us gal-cousins that have had babies, have labored naturally. Can you tell I'm so proud? It means a lot to me. Truly. I think it's because I know how much it taught me about myself. It helped me appreciate my body and the miracle of it all (pregnancy, labor, birth, new life).


Members of Our Little Club
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Jennica
Me (truly thought I was dying!)
Lissie
Chandra
Breah!


Now just Brookeeee and Kenz. (No rushing, girls! No rushing!)


Congratulations Eric and Breah! She's a bundle of joy.


PS: a few sweet things related to 'baby darlings'----
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Why Natural Childbirth? Here's a really great website.

Perhaps my favorite Nie Nie post, so very sweet. (Nicholas' birth day -- a natural, homebirth.) Read it here.

The Bagley's sweet adoption story here (especially touching since me and my two siblings are also adopted).

On her way.

this morning, morg hid my phone. by the time i found it, i had missed four calls (none of which i heard coming in).

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i missed a text too.

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all attempts to contact me were in effort to pass on a message of excitement, a message of informing, with anticipation, that the newest girly member to our girly, girly family was well on her way to arriving. (unexpectedly.) today. (days and days early.)

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by the time i finished listening to my voicemails, my heart was beating wildly. i may have even squealed.

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birth is, by far, the most exciting, unexpected, untimed, untamed experience in this thrilling, beautiful life of ours.

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it is blissful.

and exciting.

and full of emotion.

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even for people (me) miles away. (wishing i was much closer).

even for strangers.

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the beauty of the brand new is purely irresistible.

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it connects all, everywhere.

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my arms are so aching.

i simply cannot wait!

ps: you better bet when she arrives, pictures will be posted!

{photo credit: here}

The nest.

{The Younger Years }

-The 757 B gals my first year at ISU-

Last night, Stacy kissed her last little darling goodbye. They unloaded every shirt, every piece of jewelry, every pair of the highest heeled shoes (that girl has many a pair, I tell you what). They unpacked boxes, opened new bedroom sheets and organized a collegiate backpack (of sorts). Then all was done.

Megan has found herself in a new chapter, in a new town. And of quite a sudden, so much has changed.

When Stacy returns home to her empty nest, she will feel the same.

Change certainly comes to us all, everywhere. We embrace or we struggle. It still comes.

Five years ago today, I leapt into a new life, myself. And oh, how it was bravely out of character for me. How it saved me. And though I couldn’t have possibly known then, it opened up eternity. For me.

This town did that for me and because of that, my feelings for it are tender. And we remain here, Jared and I. We love our home here. And that love grows deep within our hearts.

I held Morgan in a heap last night as he slept. I brushed his cheek with my lips. That child is beautiful to me. And my, how he grows. Every single day. His little body is now heavy in my arms, his hair is long and curls around his ears and at the curve of his small neck. I sit and nod my head in disbelief at how, so soon, he will be ten months old and then, so soon, he will be one. And how I remember so blatantly clear how my stomach held him within me, how it seems not so long ago.

Last night, late, we sat around the table and I asked Stacy if she knew Megan would be their last. She answered, then I asked more. I asked if she was saddened a little, as Megan grew inside of her, as she birthed her, then as she watched her grow, thinking of the physical completion of creating her family. She was.

I spoke of how, even at the heightened discomfort of pregnancy, being overdue, then the wave of unceasing pain, I felt sad to be ending the process of that physical creation: pregnancy. And how I took comfort in knowing that God (and my body) be willing, we could create again. And again, if our hearts and arms would be open to it, if we desired it.

I thought of growth – physical, spiritual. I thought of time – the concept of time, and how our hearts don’t accept time really at all. Truly that must come from our heavenly nature, and is eternal. And someday, we will all be perfect and together again, and time nor distance can part us – any of us.

I thought of how the very essence of spirit knows no bounds, and how someday, we will no longer feel longing or sadness, or fear (of sorts) at new beginnings.

Oh, those new beginnings. The changes. Autumn (how perfect and symbolic is all of God’s timing– always). The circular motion that ebbs and tides. Goes, comes back.

Repeats.

The leaving of home.

And in time,

the returning.

Her arrival

Little miss Hadley Kate arrived just in time to wish her mother a happy birthday.

A happy birth day, it is.
For both.

I am sending my love your way, Chandra.
She surely is perfect.


(Eight hours of labor and thirty minutes of pushing - {first-time mom, mind you} - no epideral. How, I'm proud!)