SIX!

The LORD has done great things for us, 

and we are filled with joy.

Psalm 126:3

Our first (besides one snapped in the hospital) picture as a family of SIX! I feel very overwhelmed with gratitude and thanks to the Lord for His provision.  I never would have thought when Jeff and I were going through the heartache of years of infertility that this would be our family one day!

One Week Old

This sweet precious one is a week old today! 

Her sisters adore her!

She got to meet a pretty special Alabama football player in her first week of life...Barrett Jones (recent Outland Trophy winner and National Champion).    Barret is a friend of ours and involved in our ministry and is such an awesome guy outside of his football ability.  He's just a big teddy bear:). 

The first week has gone pretty well.  We are still struggling with getting this gal to gain weight.  She was eating so good the first few days and then recently because she is a little jaundiced, she is having a hard time getting enough in her because she is too tired to eat.  It's a little exhausting for us too trying to figure out how to get enough milk in her.   Hopefully we'll be over this hump soon!

Comparison

It's that time again...for comparisons!!! 

Here are my 3 precious girls as newborns the day we brought them home from the hospital.  It's hard for me to believe I've done this 3 times...God is so incredible gracious!  They all look so different don't they????

And here is Samuel with all 3 of his baby sisters.  He's such a good big brother and he's grown up so much in the past 5 years. 

I am indeed a very blessed mama!  

Things are going pretty well.  I'm tired and still sore, but I think there is just an ease to making this transition for the 3rd time.  I honestly don't think the csection has been any worse for me than with my other births.  That is a blessing for sure!  I feel much more laid back and not as hormonal (yet) this time around.  All the big kids seem to be doing well except Abigail does NOT like it when baby sister cries at all.  In fact, Abigail just cries right along with her.  Hopefully that will change soon:).  Anna Mitchell has had 2 good nights and one bad night as far as sleep.  She is having a hard time gaining weight as well so I'm doing a lot of pumping and feedings.  Thank goodness we have lots of help around here!!! 

The Hospital Stay

We have had lots of visitors the last few days at the hospital and we feel very loved.  The kids have enjoyed coming up for lots of visits although the girls were most definitely ready for us to be home. 

Anna Mitchell seems to be doing what most newborns do...sleep, eat, and poop.  She's pretty easy so far, but we shall see how things go over the next few weeks and days.  I'm pretty sore from my incision, but thank goodness for pain medicines!

We do not know who this little gal looks like.  She definitely has her own look and I'm sure there will be some comparison pics at some point (y'all know I love those)!

me and my girls:)

Sibling Love!  

this little girl has been a bit of a stinker lately...but still sweet most of the time

We are so in love with this sweet baby!

A Birth Story...

January 19, 2012 we finally got to meet our little surprise blessing!  Leading up to this day, I had some sort of intuition that my labor might not go as easy as Abigail's had 3 years ago.  I think the Lord was preparing me.

This was right after we checked in before the induction was started.  I came in to be induced at 38 weeks because of high blood pressure and because Anna Mitchell had been measuring 2-3 weeks ahead the entire pregnancy.  Both my other girls were also delivered by iduction at 38 weeks with no problems (well I did have to push for nearly 2 hours with EK and had a horrible tear/recovery). 

 The pitocin was started around 7:30 am or so.  I was 2 cm dilated but baby was at station -3 and my cervix was high and long.  This was just about how I started my other 2 inductions too. 

My doctor came and checked me about 3 hours later.  My contractions were going well...strong and 2 minutes apart.  There was no change though in my body besides dilating to 3 cm.  Baby had still not descended or dropped any.  We upped the pitocin to the highest dose and I labored until 5 pm like that with no epidural.  I had strong contractions every 2 minutes but for some reason Anna Mitchell just was not moving down into the birth canal.  So, after nearly 10 hours we had a decision to make.  We could try again the next day with the pitocin.  We could do a c-section.  We could even go home and come back next week.   However, we knew that she was already probably a big baby and if we waited another week or even day, would the outcome be any different.  Plus by blood pressure was a little high.  Based on years of experience, my doctor did not think we would have a different outcome if we tried again another day.  He figured that she was probably in a bad position with her head facing a weird direction so she couldn't fit into the birth canal.   So, we opted to go ahead and do the c-section.  I was surprisingly calm and okay with it.   I was nervous about the recovery...but my vaginal birth recoveries have actually been pretty difficult too so I tried not to worry about it too much. 

Once we made that decision, I then wanted to think about doing a tubal ligation...but I couldn't go through with it.  I chickened out of forcing myself to become sterile.  I think my background with infertility definitely influenced this.  Jeff and I do not want to have anymore children as our quiver is quite full now, but I just couldn't take any permanent measures quite yet:). 

So they prepped me for surgery and rolled me back to the O.R.  Everything went really smoothly. 

Anna Mitchell was born at 6:55 pm 

{I hope these pics aren't too graphic for y'all, but I think they are sooo cool and Jeff did such a great job capturing this amazing miracle without it being too gross}

 

Sweet girl cried so well as soon as she came out...such a precious sound to this momma's ears after months of waiting...it was instant love of course for me:)

 

She weighed 8 lbs and was 19 inches long...so definitely a good size for two weeks early! 

 They cleaned Anna Mitchell up a bit and brought her over to see me.  This was definitely a different experience than a vaginal delivery, but still just as special meeting my baby girl!

Then it was time for her to go to the nursery so she could warm under the lights and get cleaned up even more.  The family was waiting outside the nursery windows for their first glimpse of AM.   

 

After I got all sewed up and back to my room, they brought Anna Mitchell to me and I nursed her and finally got to bond.   She is just precious and has been a champion eater since birth!  

Then everyone came in to meet her and hold her!  The kids were so excited.  Abigail was a little tentative as we expected, but she has done great so far with little sissy.    Everyone fell quickly in love with the newest member of our family!  Samuel has the most tender heart and kept having tears in his eyes and saying "I'm so happy!".   Such a sweet boy.

 Uncle Ryan and Aunt Erin even came for the big day and have been helping with the other kiddos too.  So fun!

This little girl is quite obsessed and quite interested in everything about her new baby sister.  She is never going to leave her alone once we get home:).

My sweet friends Carlley and Mary Grace even stopped by for a quick look and hold:).  Love them!

No matter how long and hard the day of labor was or how hard the recovery will be, we are so thankful that she is here and healthy!  

She's Here!!!!!

Welcome to the world sweet one! 

Anna Mitchell

born at 6:55pm

via c section (more on that tomorrow)

8 lbs  19 inches 

38 Weeks

This is my last belly pic and my last day to be pregnant (hopefully forever).  It's a little bittersweet.  I am sooooo incredibly thankful for this baby and for the opportunity to let her grow in my womb for 38 weeks.  God has definitely blown our minds and hearts as he has answered heartwrenching prayers for children way above all we ever asked or imagined.   I am very glad though that I get to deliver tomorrow and be done with pregnancy:). 

We are so excited to meet Anna Mitchell tomorrow!  I'm sure I'll have a million pictures to share and will hopefully be able to post from the room like I did 3 years ago with Abigail.  Please pray for a smooth delivery and healthy baby!

On Nesting

Well folks I'm driving my husband crazy with my nesting in full force the last few weeks!  I'm trying to take advantage of it because my motivation to clean out and organize may never come back with trying to parent 4 kids:). Ha!

I've cleaned out every closet in the house besides Jeff's...which I want to do tomorrow, but we shall see.  Right before Christmas when all the good sales and codes were out, I made 4 photo books to catch myself up to 2011 (so now I'm only a year behind:).  A few weeks ago, I made 5 loaves of banana bread, 2 poppyseed chicken casseroles, and 2 chicken spaghetti casseroles to freeze.  I feel like I've been very productive and it feels good! 

Then once I made the pillow for Anna Mitchell's room, it's all I've wanted to do!  I made one more little one for AM with some fabric I already had.  Then, last night I made 3 more and had to make myself stop because my back was hurting so bad.  They really are so easy and making pillow covers are so fun for a girl like me who likes to change things up A LOT. 

This one I made with some fabric I had that was given to me by my aunt.  I already had the pillow insert and just stuck this one on for an instant free change!  Awesome!

Then I got some fabric on clearance at our one good fabric store and made two pillows for our bed.  I felt like we needed a little color in there. Photos are taken on my phone so quality is not great, but oh well. 

Now, I'm going to enjoy the next 3 days with my kiddos, go grocery shopping,  run a few last minute errands, and treasure every little kick and roll in my belly:) as we wait to meet this precious baby girl!

Phone Pics and Quotables

Here are just a few recent pics from the ole phone...

1.  my very first pillow to sew...it was so easy and now I'm sort of addicted:)  

2. We put the girls beds back to bunk beds and they were so excited!  Now they have much more room to play which is why we did it. 

3.  This was my set up when I did all my sewing. 

1. We watched the live stream of Passion 2012 (Jeff was there as part of his job).  It was an amazing conference of 42,000 college students at the Georgia Dome. 

2.  LOVE my Keurig coffee maker so much

3.  Just Abs being cute in her piggie tails.  We went to lunch one day while the other kiddos were at school.  I only have a few more days with her by ourselves (sniff sniff).  

In case you haven't heard, we had a pretty big event happen Monday night when Alabama won their 14th National Championship.  I, of course did not get to go due to being 36 weeks pregnant.  Jeff did get to go and he actually got on tv several times.  Can you spy him in the picture above??    The kids were excited too even though they really didn't get to watch the game. 

The joys of pregnancy...I no longer have skinny legs or ankles due to my swelling and high blood pressure.  Only a few more days though! 

We rearranged our family room (can you tell I've been nesting like crazy) because I scored these awesome chairs from my friend Bethany.  I'm in LOVE with them and the new arrangement in the room.  These chairs are actually survivors of the Tuscaloosa Tornado (and the home my friend and her husband lost).  They were damaged which is why she was selling them.  So I already fixed up the wood (although I still may paint it some day) and now I just need to find fabric to recover them.  The one on the left has some pretty bad stains on it that wont come out since the fabric is silk.  Tuscaloosa doesn't offer much in the way of fabric stores so I may just have to wait until I can make a trip to Birmingham (which may be awhile now).  Anyway, for now we are just living with the stains...I mean really with 4 kids it doesn't matter, right?!  Oh, and I also bought that new storage ottoman with some of my Christmas money (our other one was in bad shape).  

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Because I don't want to forget, I need to go ahead and write down these quotes that the kids have said recently (I fail to do this very often, and have already forgotten so many). 

Samuel one morning after a particularly bad dream that woke him up the night before:

"I knew it wasn't real, but it was just so scary because the screen in my brain is so good!"

Ellie Kate after getting a crick in her neck:

"My neck got cricked!"

Ellie Kate in regards to Anna Mitchell coming soon:

"We've never had a baby in the house before."  

(poor girl doesn't even remember Abigail as a baby because she was still a baby herself:)).

Ellie Kate at the dinner table after I had gotten up and down a million times:

"Is it hard to take care of us?"  yes, sweetie it is, but i wouldn't have it any other way!

Abigail after being asked what she wanted to be when she grew up:

"A football player!!!!" 

(clearly, we are raising her in a football crazed town and home)