Finally...some pictures!

My little Joey, 7 pounds, 8 ounces, 21 inches long, born at 3:07am after 1.5 hours of labor!

I LOVE Nate's face here--he's so proud of his little man :)

Right after he was born--can you tell I'm so happy it's OVER! :)

I was so shocked that he came so fast...and happy!

Thank you Jesus for another healthy child!

Getting his first bath

She gave him a little Mohawk--totally adorable!

Later that day, Brookie meeting her brother for the first time. She was so excited!

She LOVES him!

Love her little faces...she's in awe!

Daddy with his 2 little kids

LOTS of hair!

Our first family picture! Joey was about 10 hours old!

Claire got here 2 days after he was born, so she missed the birth :( but was able to still come to the hospital for a while. She'll be here for about 2 weeks! I'm so happy she's here!!

Brookie's face after Jo-Jo had a huge diaper blow out :)

Yay! Aunt Claire is here!

Joey is 2 days old...we are VERY ready to leave the hospital and take him home!

Little Man :)

Candid shot--LOVE

They took FOREVER to discharge us, so we were all a little restless, but we managed to get one last picture of us leaving the hospital :)

Thank you all so much for the prayers and support throughout this pregnancy! I thank the Lord that my pregnancy, labor and delivery went SO well! I am so blessed!

Joseph Hank enters the World!

At 10:45pm, my water broke. Honestly it was such a small amount I thought I had peed my pants, and told Nate, "ummm I have to tell you something. Either I just peed my pants or...."

"Your water broke," he said. I didn't think it did because it happened when I laughed a little and pregnant woman can't control their bladders sometimes! :) But sure enough, when more came out I knew it was the real thing!

Our first thought was, "Claire won't be here," because she was coming in only 2 days. :( My next reaction was shaking like crazy because I was so nervous to go into labor again. It was like the memory of everything last time came back!
I called my Midwife to let her know, ( there are 2 Dr's and 3 midwives in my practice and she's my favorite one out of all of them--I was so glad she was on call!) and she said to try to go to bed and get some sleep and come in to the hospital when labor started. We packed for the hospital, got everything ready and then tried to go to bed around 12am. I would have a random contraction or cramping here and there, but other than that nothing was happening.
I tried to sleep but couldn't (of course) and that's when I started to post my last blog post. :) So it was around 1:15 and contractions started picking up a little. They were about every 4 minutes apart and not each one was bad, but most were pretty strong.
At 1:30 I woke up Nate and we called his Mom to have her come to stay with Brookie. I also called my midwife to let her know I was coming in.
As we were getting ready to go, the contractions were picking up, probably 2 minutes apart and I couldn't walk or talk through them.
At 2am we left for the hospital and I was in very active labor.
At 2:20am we arrived, got checked in. My midwife said I was 7 cm which made me very happy! She sat with me the whole time and said as soon as I started to feel pressure I could push with the contractions.
Within a few minutes, I did, but had some sharp pain when I would let myself bare down, so I knew I wasn't complete yet.
With each contraction she let me push a little, allowing my body to move the baby lower.
Around 3, I was really pushing. They brought me a mirror so I could see, and at 3:07 am my little man was born, weighing 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 21 inches long.
They put him on my chest immediately and I think I was still in shock that I had just gotten to the hospital 40 minutes before and that he was already in my arms!
Something that was so amazing was when my MW told me to feel the cord and squeeze it a little. "He's still attached to you and his heart is beating through you." It was such an awesome feeling to feel that cord pulsing and have the baby in my arms and know he was such a part of me.
So, I was in labor for an hour and a half before he was born. Pretty amazing! God is so good to me!

My nurse told me that I was her inspiration for when she has kids and that was the kind of labor and delivery she loved to be a part of--non dramatic. That's always encouraging to hear after you've been in the worst pain of your life. :)

Also, In the same 12 hour shift that Joey was born, 15 babies were too! That night the weather changed drastically--when I walked out to go to the hospital, it was at least 90 degrees and extremely muggy. When we got to the hospital 20 minutes later, it was 70 and raining. She said because of the barometric pressure, every one's water was breaking! :)

I only had to have 1 stitch and I'm feeling great! I'm trying to take it easy because I overdid it after the last birth and want to be feeling good and active for when my family gets here later in October. Brookie LOVES her little brother and Nate and I are so blessed to have 2 healthy children!

The Big Day is Here!

Right now it's 1:13am. My water broke at around 10:45pm! The Dr. said to try to get some sleep and come in when I'm in real labor. I did try, for about an hour to sleep--so much running through my head, even though I'm extremely tired and wish I was sleeping right now!
I'm having contractions about 4 minutes apart that are lasting for 1 minute or more and are pretty strong. I think it may be time to go into the hospital soon. We are ready to go with everything packed, all I have to do is wake up my sweet hubby and drive there! I'm glad that one of us is sleeping! :)
I'm so scared to go through labor again, especially feeling these contractions, but I know I did it once before and this time (I HOPE!!) can only be easier and shorter! We shall see! :) I can't believe that within 24 hours I'll have my little man in my arms!
Today I set up his little crib and bought him a blue diaper bag. :) Good thing! Brookie helped me and was so excited--she wanted to put his blanket in the crib. The she leaned over the edge and said, "awww, he's so cute, I like him! He's a ducky!" lol lol!! She may be surprised when "baby Joey" is a little boy and not a ducky. Haha. Well, sometime today she'll get to meet her little brother! I can't wait to see how she reacts after waiting and being excited for so long!
I've had to stop typing a few times to get through a contraction. I'm going to get a few things ready and then head off. I remember this feeling--it's real labor!
Will keep you all updated as much as possible!

Waiting...

I'll be 38 weeks on Saturday! I can't believe how quickly this pregnancy has flown by, especially this last month or so! Last time, the last month was slow. This time it's seemed to be the fastest part, which is so nice!

It's weird knowing that I could go any second, or it could still be a few weeks. That's probably the worst part of pregnancy--those last few weeks of waiting! The suspense...not knowing when or if your water will break...while I'm playing the piano at church, shopping in the grocery store, or if it'll be at 3 in the morning. Or if I'll start having hard contractions and just go to the hospital then--will we have to sit in traffic? I hope it's not rush hour, because the traffic here is awful and we'll be sitting in it for about an hour. Sitting in traffic while in horrible pain is not a nice thought.

And then it could just be smooth, in the middle of the night or day when there is no traffic, a nice 20 minute ride to the hospital and baby is born a few hours later! :)

So while all of this is running through my head, I'm busy preparing for a new little one to enter our household. Nate bought a plastic "dresser" with drawers on it, so I washed all of Joey's clothes and put them all in there. The little dresser fits right in Brooke's closet, which is nice. At this point he doesn't have a room, because my family will be here for a while and I'll just have him in a bassinet in my room. I'll probably set something up later on when he's a few months old. I have Brookie's room all organized, too. Put away clothes that were too small and got out some fall things--even though it's still in the 70's and 80's here, so we aren't even thinking about long sleeves.

I'm staying nice and caught up on laundry and housework. Other than that, I need to pack for the hospital and that's about it! My sister Claire comes in next Thursday and I really want her to be here for the birth, so I'm hoping that the baby will hang on until then, even though I would LOVE to go earlier. :) That would still be 10 days early when she gets here, so that's a great time!

Yesterday I brought Brookie to the mall and bought her a new little skirt and 2 hats. We've been preparing for the baby a lot and she is so excited, but sometimes she gets very emotional and cries for daddy, or just hugs me and sits on my lap and cries. I know it sounds crazy, but I really do think that she senses that something is about to change and it's made her a little emotional. :( I wanted to spend a little time with just her at the mall before I have another one to take care of while we're there, too. We ate a sub together and just had a really great time together. I will post a picture of her in her new hat later--it's absolutely adorable, and of course she chose a pink one! I got her a little winter hat, too, for when that time comes.

For now, I've just posted these pictures of Brooke making funny faces because pictures always make a post better. :) She picked that up somewhere and I'm not sure where--it makes Nate and me laugh every time. :)

Perhaps the next time I post, it will be to tell you my birth story and share pictures of my cutie! Wish me luck--and prayers more than that!

Baby # 2, Month NINE!!!! WOO HOO!!!

Well, here I am on the home stretch of this pregnancy! I'm officially 36.5 weeks right now :), but I'm happy to be dilated almost 3 centimeters and 70% effaced! So I am pretty much thinking I will go early, but we will see what happens! I will know a little more of an update on Friday when I have another appointment.

My back has been bothering me a little more, but I will take it over the months of agony I had with Brooklynne. I'm not having high blood pressure, swelling or any of the problems I did last time, either--Praise the Lord! I've felt so much better this time!

At this time I've gained a nice, healthy 31 pounds. :) I was hoping not to go over 30, but it'll be fine if I'm a few over. I haven't been able to eat very much at all lately. I think my belly is too full with a baby in it and doesn't have much room for food! I know that will change once I have the baby--I remember being so hungry and I still remember that delicious, wonderful meal after delivery: a chicken salad sandwich. (Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE chicken salad?)

We got family/maternity pictures done last week and when I have those I will try to post as many as I can. You can check out some previews here and here. If you do, please comment and tell her what a great job she did! She really is an amazing photographer and I'm so happy with how they turned out!

Well, I think that is all the update I have for now! I would like to try to do a "9 months" post, putting all the pictures of me together for the whole 9 months, so we'll see if I get around to doing that.

Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend! We had a fun day hanging out at a cookout with friends, talking, laughing our heads off and eating of course. :)

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All Grown Up

I wanted to share these recent pictures of Brookie that I took. She loves this little skirt that someone in church gave her, and she is wearing her necklace that Aunt Claire made her, which she adores too. She is SUCH a girl. :) She's growing up so quickly--talking so much and coming up with new things to make me laugh every day!

The other day she looked at my belly and said "Mom, your belly is disgusting." Hahaha!! Probably because at this point with stretch marks, it is disgusting! :)

Last night we layed together on my bed and she kept her hand on my belly for a long time. That was the first time that she had the patience to wait for baby Joey to move so she could feel him. He was moving around and kicking like crazy and she was enthralled! Her eyes would get really big and she would say, "woah!" and laugh. "Baby Joey's kicking me!!!" I loved it! I only have 4 weeks left in this pregnancy, so I was glad that she was finally able to feel him moving in there. :)