Announcing...Emerson Leigh Thompson

She is here!

 Emerson Leigh Thompson

August 16, 2012

9:24 am

6 lbs 7 oz 19 inches

Hard to believe our little girl is here... and almost one month old now!  

Below is the story of her arrival...if you're not into that sorta thing, just scroll through to see some fun pictures taken by fourth photography.  (Plus a few of my own...bet you can tell the difference)

Bill Wilson of fourth photography is a great friend and talented wedding photographer, he was willing to try out newborn photography for us and did an incredible job - thanks Bill!!

Emerson's Birth Story:

Leading up to Emerson's birth, my body had been getting ready for a few weeks.  In fact when I went in for my 38 week appointment on August 15th, I was 5 1/2 cm dilated!  My doctor and nurse thought I would have a super fast delivery (my labor with Kinley only took 8 hours).  So my plan was to head to the hospital whenever the first contraction came.

38 weeks...this one I took myself on the 14th

I can't tell you how many scenarios I had played out in my head of having my baby at home or on the highway, being stuck in traffic, or going through transition while waiting for the arrival of Kinley's babysitter...

Thankfully none of those things happened, in fact my labor was actually a little longer this time!  Just goes to show you can't really plan your labors can you?!

August 15th 

Evening:  Head out for a Girls' Night to celebrate a friend's birthday (ironic that I had both of my girls the night after having a Girls' night!)

9:00ish:  Get home

10:30:  First contraction...ish. it wasn't incredibly painful like how it started with Kinley and there was absolutely no consistency...10 minutes apart, 3 minutes, 7 minutes, 15 minutes.  Some strong, some so weak I couldn't really tell when they started and stopped.  I kept thinking "I've done this before!!  Shouldn't I know if I'm in labor?"

11:00: Wake up Trent...I may be in labor??  We time them together, call the sitter to tell her we may call back and finally decide to watch some TV.  (seriously thankful for friends that don't mind us calling close to midnight to say - we might need your help!)

12:00 (midnight):  Together we decide that since we can't figure out if it's the real thing, then it must not be.  Text the sitter, and head to bed...uughhh

But of course I can't fall asleep!!

12:30:  Have a couple "oh wow, that one hurt" contractions and wake up Trent again.

1:00:  Finally bite the bullet and tell Trent to call sitter AGAIN and ask her to come...we are going to the hospital!

1:20-2:00:  Sitter arrives, head to the hospital, get checked in, and find out I'm 6 cm (I was perplexed...thinking surely I'd be further than that)

1st best surprise:  A very good friend of mine is a L&D nurse.  I'd asked, and she was willing to be there for our delivery if it worked out with her schedule, getting things shifted around at the hospital etc. - Well, she was actually working that night!!!  She met me at the check-in desk and took care of us for the rest of the night! 

I get a little fuzzy from here on out....

3:00ish:  Epidural in...love that thing :). Still 6-6 1/2.  See the on-call doctor (Dr. Yium - whom I now LOVE!), she says she'll come back in a couple hours to check on me

3-7:00:  Rest, wait, wait some more, my mom arrives from Waco (yay!!!).  Everyone expects Emerson to be here by 7 but nada.  Trent's parents arrive somewhere in there too.  I think the doctor came somewhere around 7:00am and I'm just about 7 cm.  moving.like.a.snail!!

7:30ish:  Doctor breaks my water, comes back a little later and starts pitocin.

8:30ish:  Doctor ups the pitocin and contractions start coming on top of each other -- here we go!  Start feeling like I've GOT to push.

9:00ish:  I get the 2nd best surprise of the day!  I knew at this point that my doctor (Dr. Nash) who I really really love wouldn't be delivering Emerson since she was off that day.  The nurses ask me if I think I can wait for 10 minutes to push because Dr. Nash is actually on her way in.  She moved some mountains to be there and I'll forever be grateful.

9:20:  Dr. Nash arrives.  Yay!  Next contraction she says we'll push.

9:24:  One contraction, 4 pushes, Emerson is here!  (soooo different than pushing for 2 hours with Kinley!)

There is just nothing like that first cry. 

Nothing.

I laughed and cried and laughed more.  

Top 3 moments of my life...

Walking down the isle to meet my soon-to-be husband

 Kinley's first cry

and now Emerson's

Thank you Lord for these incredible gifts! 

Here are a few more pics from the day

Dr. Nash and Emerson right after she was born

Mary - our friend and L&D Nurse!!  You were amazing!!!

Photo Shoot - 18 months

I mentioned previously that we got some pictures taken of Kinley in May by the very talented kristinjphotography.  Kristin is a dear friend and GREAT talent.  I would recommend her to anyone for her incredible work and the way she draws out each personality she photographs!  

You'll see what I mean =)

 

 

 

You can check out Kristin's work

 on facebook here

on her website here

and on her blog here

She does amazing work with adoption photography too!  Check it out here 

P.S. Be ready to have your heartstrings pulled and eyes filled with tears of joy when you look at her work!

I'm still here...catching up from the last 3 months

3 months and 2 days since I last updated this blog...I promised myself I wouldn't be a slave to the blog or let myself get too obsessed with updating all the time.

But so much has happened and is about to happen that I don't want to forget!  

(Hopefully this won't be a novel!)

We are 4 weeks and 5 days away from August 28th (my due date for Emerson Leigh!).  And we're not-so-secretly praying that the Lord would bring her early (August 19th to be specific)...this momma is tired of being pregnant in the summer!

www.kristinjphotography.com

P.S. thanks so much to my sweet and TALENTED friend Kristin Laughlin for taking this picture back in May - more of her fabulous pictures soon! 

With Emerson on her way - we've been teaching Kinley about being a "big girl" and "big sister" lots.  I've tried to prepare her by pulling out all of the baby gear and talking about how Emerson is coming to our house soon and will be using everything.  Plus she gives Emerson lots of hugs and kisses - I love this!!
 
Also, as we prepare to get things ready for Emerson, we've moved Kinley from the nursery into her big girl room and made the switch from crib to twin bed!!  I was dreading this - thinking it would mean lots of sleepless nights, but she has done AMAZING!  She loves climbing in and out and has developed some precious new bedtime routines as a result.  Every night we put on some soft music, give her a glass of milk and read from The Jesus Storybook Bible (BEST children's bible ever!!).   Then she climbs in her big girl bed and asks for us to pray for her and with her.

Melts my heart every time.

I've had a blast making her new room and can't wait to post pictures of everything soon - just have a few last projects to complete before it's completely done.  

via Pinterest

via Pinterest

via Pinterest

via Pinterest

This is some of my inspiration for her room - gotta love pinterest!

Besides re-doing Kinley's Big Girl room, we also decided to remodel our guest bathroom.  Let's just say it's been an adventure!  We started with some free tile thanks to a good friend, have had 2 minor floods in the tear-down phase, we're currently debating how much/how to fix the results of the floods, and are picking out counter-top, vanity, wall color etc....

...did I mention that we're 4 1/2 weeks away from the due date?!  Hey, we're keeping it exciting!

Outside of house/pregnancy stuff we've kept busy too.

Starting sometime this spring, our lives got totally crazy.  Trent has been the youth pastor at our church for the past 7 years and we've LOVED every second of it.  There is just nothing like walking alongside kids as the meet the Lord and realize that He's worth giving everything up for.

This spring our dear friend, Matt Blackwell, who has also been the college pastor at our church for several years decided to take an exciting job as a campus pastor for another local church.  I really can't express how much we love the Blackwells.  We've shared life in community group for close to 3 years and have traded babysitting nights for dates since before we had Kinley...actually Trent was doing it with the Blackwell's and other friends long before he knew me!  As a result of Matt leaving, our church leadership asked Trent to consider stepping out of youth ministry to be the college pastor alongside pastor to those in their 20's (which he's been doing for about a year now).

Kinley (wow she looks young) hanging with the Blackwell boys - we LOVE these guys!!!

Here's a more recent pic from one of our many nights of swapping babysitting and dates

God moved in our hearts so quickly to confirm this is exactly what He has for us - so as of April 1st Trent took the job!  We kept doing high school ministry till early June, which meant 3 ministries, a trip to Colorado, Haiti, and a road trip all across Texas in just 3 short months.  Ministry has been crazy and full of blessings during the transition, but we're loving the new direction God is taking us!

There is so much more I could say about this - but again trying to avoid writing a novel!

A few updates on our little BIG girl Kinley!

Seriously - is this my baby girl??  She is getting so big!

Kinley LOVES to talk, and all things "big girl" right now...like her big girl chair, drinking from the "biggie water" (i.e. our glass of water instead of her own), her big girl room, and basically anything she can do on her own.

She seems to be turning into quite the girly girl...

 No, I didn't pose her

 Yes, she picked out all her accessories on her own

We are in trouble!

At 20 months, Kinley loves to talk, play chase with her daddy, eat LOTS, and to sing!  She sings parts of Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Happy Birthday, Jesus Loves Me, and a few others.  It's so precious to listen to her conversations she has with herself!

She also loves watching cartoons when we let her - especially Dora, Curious George ("Monkey"), Sesame Street ("Elmo"), and newly The Cat in the Hat. 

One of the most precious things she does right now is sort things.  Usually that just means making messes, but she's fascinated with taking things out of containers and putting them back in.  Here's a little video of her sorting her diapers.

I just love this girl!

Kinley also loves to read - or really she loves for us to read to her while sitting in our lap...which is a problem since I don't have much of a lap these days :/  We get creative.

Some of the funny things she says right now are "Let's do this thing" (from her daddy), "May I have more please" (with the cutest little inflection), "Hold you" then she corrects herself and says "Hold ME", and just yesterday I caught her saying "Stay focused" to herself in the car.  I guess she was remembering me asking her to stay focused in something I'd asked her to do at the house.

She is our little parrot for sure!!!

Ok, ending the novel for now.  More on Kinley's Big Girl room and more from the photo shoot with KristinJPhotography soon!!!