Rachel's Blessing Day

At church on November 13th, Nathan was able to give Rachel a name and a blessing. Rachel is Hebrew and means Ewe. Darlene is American and means dear, loved one. Picking a girl's name was very difficult for us.  It wasn't until about 2 weeks before my due date that we had our top three names.  There was Rachel Darlene, then Eliza Rose, and Sariah Dawn. If this baby was a boy, his name would have been David Nathan.

Rachel is a good fit for our family because it has 6 letters like everyone else and now we have two names that start with an H and two names that start with an R. I think the name is pretty and it was the only one that stuck out to me. My mom was actually the first person to suggest it. I also like middle names that start with the letter D and Darlene is the name of my college roommate who has become my kids' adapted aunt.

Sunday was also the Primary Program, this is where all the children from ages 3-12 can help present the themes they have learned at church throughout the year. The year's theme was "I know the Scriptures are True." For the program, the kids who were 9, 10, or 11 years old did little 2 minutes talks that focused on what we learned during a certain month. Then one of the age group classes answered a question about the same topic.  Hailey's class question was "What do you love about Jesus?" Hailey's answer (that she came up by herself) was "He gave us my family."

Church is three hours long. The blessing blessing and the Primary Program happened in the first hour. After that, my parents, Morgan's family, Darlene's family and I came home to set up the luncheon. Nathan had a class to teach the second hour.

During the third hour, Hannah had a seizure during nursery (a class for 18 months to 3 years old). It long lasted 40 seconds and she had a father there who is a nurse and also has a daughter who has seizures. She was well taken care of and was able to rest afterwards with Nathan. It's been about 4 months since her last seizure. When Nathan told me what happened, it caught me off guard emotional and was hard to handle. I'm with my kids all the time and have been very involved with Hannah's seizures and treatment. It's hard that she had a seizure and I wasn't there to comfort her during or after it. Hannah however bounced back quickly and acted normal for a busy Sunday with lots of people around. She was a bit cranky and took a while to settle down for her nap.

 I realize that especially now with having four kids, I can't be there for each kid at the same time all the time. I am the type of person who tries to do everything by myself. I am thinking for the quiet moments I can slip away to feed Rachel and admire the wonder that she is.

 I'm thankful for Nathan who is a wonderful partner and is very capable of handling our kids especially with medical emergencies. He was asked once how did he stay calm while delivering he's own baby. His response was something like "It's just a baby. It has to come out sometime."

 I am thankful for everyone who could come and support us. It was fun to celebrate the birth of our newest member of the family.

Zeke's birthday

Saturday night, most of Nate's family came up to attend the baby blessing the next day, but we also had a birthday party for Zeke. Emmie and I made BTS cake. It was fun being able to take some time out and celebrate Nate's oldest brother.

Grandpa's here

My dad was able to come for the baby blessing and spend a couples of days with us.  On Saturday, we finished up a few of the projects mom and I started around the house. One of the projects were putting up the pictures in Rachel's and Robert's room. I'll take pictures and blog about how that turned out later. We also had a photo op. Rachel is starting to open her eyes more so now we have a few pictures with her eyes opened. It took a couples of days after she was born for me to be able to see what color her eyes are, which is blue.

First Bath

Well, it's actual a picture of her third bath. Her very first bath was with me. As apart of our home birth kit the midwifes gave us, there were after baby bath herbs. These herbs are supposed to help my stitches and can also help the baby's belly cord to dry faster. Rachel's second bath was right after a big blow out and Hannah was very interested in what we were doing. I had a hard time getting the water temperature right and felt very crowded in our tiny bathroom. Our tub has glass sliding doors which makes giving baths to kids a bit difficult, especially when it's time to wash them and they are hiding at the far end behind the glass door.

So here we are with the third bath and was finally able to take a picture of it.  It's funny to see how little events like this change in importance with the number of kids I have. With Hailey it was a huge deal (and I was nervous about how to bathe such a tiny baby), we have tons of pictures of it. We also have a few bath pictures of Robert and of Hailey copying my actions with her baby doll. Then with Hannah and Rachel there's only one or two pictures and not much hype about it.

Where's Waldo?

This picture reminds me of an I Spy page or a Where's Waldo Book. On Nov 11, (Rachel is 13 days old) Robert and Hannah decided it was time for Rachel to play kitchen with them.  Mom and I were busy doing something else in the kitchen, so this is how I found her.  Though they were very careful to avoid putting things on her head, I think they still need a little more supervision around her.

Birth story thoughts

I think about the amazing events that happened to me with Rachel's birth story.

I was telling a friend at church about how things went with Rachel and she told me how that's a great story and how important it is that each kid knows their birth story. She told me how for her training she was working in a juvenile center and when the kids were asked about their birth story they responded negatively saying things like their parents didn't want them or they were a mistake. It taught her the importance of their birth story to let kids know they were loved and wanted. People who grew up thinking they were a mistake will make mistakes.

I want Rachel to know that this little pink house with four bedrooms, a big backyard, and no driveway or garage was where she was born. 

We choose to have her at home surrounded by people who love her and who anxiously awaited her arrival. I did more to prepare for this birth because I was with midwifes who really cared about giving me knowledge and choices.  I listened to a Hypnobirthing CD to help me relax and sleep during the pregnancy and read a book about how to work with my body through the contractions.  It was difficult to use any of these techniques during labor because they got intense quickly.  I was also planning on a water birth to help during the transition phrase (we didn't have time to even think about setting it up). I added more protein to my diet to help prevent preeclampsia. I also drank pregnancy tea that the midwifes provided which helped increase my iron levels. 

I was able prepared for a natural home birth due to the other children. I wouldn't have been able to do it with Hailey because for contractions were always 2 minutes apart and you can't prepare yourself for the pain of labor and know what your body is doing until you have experienced it.  The ease of Robert's and Hannah's labor gave me the confidence I needed.  Though despite having labor twice completely drug free, I failed to realize how much I was progressing with Rachel because I was focused on getting drugs when the contractions were right on top of each other and it was too difficult to handle instead of thinking the baby is about to come.  With Rachel, it didn't really hit me how close I was until my water broke and I felt her head coming down.

I also did an at home, natural birth to let me kids know that still with great hospitals and doctors all around you still have choices. It's like getting my Bachelor's Degree. I most likely will never use to it to get a job but I have it and I can show my kids that it is possible to accomplish this great goal. It also opened up a world of alternative medicine and methods to us which has helped greatly with Hannah's seizures.

Another amazing aspect on Rachel's birth story is that Nathan caught her. He delivered his own baby and very few dads nowadays can say that or even have that opportunity.  My mom and Nate did CPR on her to help her learn how to breathe. I am very lucky to have had this opportunity that isn't available to all women, to have Rachel at home. Rachel's story makes me feel grateful and blessed.

Little Angel

I am so lucky to have a friend, Kelly, who loves photography and wanted to practice taking newborn pictures on Rachel.  Rachel is just 6 days old in these. Kelly did these in her kitchen/dining area and had her sister-in-law help pose Rachel.  I'm amazed at how nice the set up looks but how simple it actually is.  She has wooden floor slats, a pvc pipe frame to hold the backgrounds, and a crown molding between the two. Also they used a space heater to help Rachel feel more comfortable. Except for the Blessing dress and the stuffed animals, everything else belongs to Kelly. 

I love how these pictures turned out and kept thinking "what a special little angel I have" through the whole session.  It was great to have that time focusing on just Rachel and the joys of dressing her up. I felt like a little girl again dressing up my doll (which would have been Diana).

Here's the Minnie Mouse that Hailey gave her.

Here is Rachel's blessing dance. Each girl has their own blessing dress that they will be able to keep.

I love pink and brown together. I think she is just super cute. She makes my heart melt.

Every kid has a special stuffed animal. Hailey has Lambie. Robert had Doggie. Hannah has Bear. So when I went to a scrapbooking story and saw this super cute, soft elephant I thought it would be perfect for either boy or girl. It'll be fun to see the size comparision as she continues to grow.