Only 7.5 Months Late . . .

Gemma Grace's Birth Story! Part 1 . . .

signs in the triage room. interesting difference between the two!

After a few days of timing "hopefully-these-are-contractions," I was lying in bed with John on Sunday night, Dec. 5. It was a few days past my due date by my calculation, and nearly a week past by the standard calculation, and now I was getting a little anxious . . . anxious for our little girl to arrive while her Grandma was still in town. :-) I'd even told John that I felt like breaking my own water *just* so I could know for sure when it was real.

Well, on Sunday night shortly before falling asleep, I suddenly felt a little trickle. I leapt out and ran to the bathroom, saying, "I REALLY hope this baby comes soon because I think I'm losing control of my bladder!" John came in to help assess the situation, and we quickly decided that this was something totally different. "I think my water broke!" It was surreal--I called the midwife pager a minute later. It was around midnight.

The midwife on call called me back shortly, but took a laid-back approach to the whole thing. She advised me to lie down for an hour or so and get back up. If it was really my water, it would pool in that time and there would be more, she said. We took her advice and I went back to bed. John told me I should try to rest in case this was the real thing, but I was too excited to sleep! When the alarm went off, there wasn't any more, but we called her back anyway. I was sure it was my water because of the dark color, and I knew that dark water probably meant meconium. Because of that and because I was expecting to need a round of IV antibiotics due to being GBS+, we decided to go in. ("GBS" or Group B Strep is a bacteria common to women but bad for babies!) I think John was a little disappointed that he didn't get to make a dramatic drive to the hospital with his wife screaming for him to go faster. :-) All I had was some sporadic light cramping.

It felt like it took forever to park the car and sign in to the L&D unit! Finally I got set up in a triage room. The midwife confirmed that my membranes were ruptured, and I think she used the word "massively." I could have told her that. ;-) With ruptured membranes, I had up to 24 hours to see if labor would start on its own. Otherwise, they would induce me. Because of the GBS, they didn't check me for dilation yet, but since I hadn't been dilated more than a fingertip a few days earlier, induction would require a foley bulb to artificially start the dilation and an IV with Pitocin to start contractions.

Of course, as the midwife pointed out, 24 hours from now would be the middle of the night! It seemed we had three options: start the induction now (middle of the night), start in 24 hrs (also the middle of the night) or try to get some sleep and pick a time tomorrow to start. The third option seemed best to us, especially when she gave us some statistic about how 80% of women go into labor on their own within 16 hours of membrane rupture. When she told me that Meg, one of my favorite of the 6 midwives, would be coming on at 7 in the morning, I was quite thankful that the Lord should be so kind to us!

While we waited to be put in an actual room, John and I looked at each other in amazement. We're going to be parents . . . are we ready?!! We were also very tired, and by the time we settled in to our room, it was close to 3 a.m. I slept all right, considering that I was wearing the monitors the whole time, and woke probably around 7 a.m. when the shift changed and the new nurse came in to introduce herself. I appreciated that they changed out the EFM belts for wireless telemetry so I could move around. They also started me on some of my IV antibiotics, but set up the IV so that it could be easily detached (hep lock). Soon Meg came in as well to discuss our options.

Now, there is a more natural means of stimulating your body's own production of oxytocin, and I had written on my birth plan that if Pitocin was recommended, I'd like to try that first. However, when I went over my wishes with a different midwife a few weeks earlier, she'd told me that they wouldn't allow that because an IV drip of Pitocin is easier to control. I'd reconciled myself to her "rule," hoping it wouldn't come to that. However, when Meg read my birth plan, she said we were welcome to try our natural method and even gave us some tips! We decided to wait a few more hours before starting, and I took a shower and ate the full breakfast they brought me. Meg agreed to check back on us around noon.

Mom came in to visit around 10 or 11, and after she left, we started attempting our natural induction method. While we didn't have to do anything until midnight, I felt motivated to get things going before Meg came back at noon. And, to our excitement, the contractions started coming . . .

Our Week with Jenni

As far as I know, the guest who traveled the furthest to be at Sarah's wedding is the one who traveled all the way from Northern Ireland, our dear former-suitemate Jenni. :-D After the wedding, Jenni drove home to spend the next week with us, and we were extremely excited to show her our home and spend some time with her!



We left PA on Sunday after worshiping with Sarah's family, hoping to make it to Richmond in time for the evening service of one of our sister churches. Sadly, after checking online, we discovered that they don't have an evening service! We didn't make it back home in time for our own church, but we listened in online and ended up going for a stroll around the Duke Gardens that evening.

Also somewhat sadly, all our photos from the week are from the semi-good iPhone camera. That seems to be how we get most of our pictures these days, since it's always around!


On Monday, July 4th, we unpacked, did laundry, visited Target and made a picnic lunch to bring to our state symphony's free patriotic concert that night. We got this iffy picture and about half of our sandwiches eaten before thunder and lightning started and the rain came down in torrents! So, the concert and fireworks were both a wash, quite literally!



Thankfully, Tuesday and Wednesday worked out as planned! Jenni was very much looking forward to getting some of the sun they rarely see at home, so we took her to the Outer Banks and spent some time on the beach. It was Gemma's first beach experience and she loved it! She slept for the first bit . . .


. . . but soon woke up to enjoy splashing in the warm water . . .


. . . and playing in the sand, which she tried to eat, so we didn't let her stay there for very long!

Back into the waves with Daddy!

For the next couple of days, Jenni stayed with a friend of hers from home who is working in our area, but we all met up for dinner each night. We had fun introducing them to some of our local favorites, and also making a big meal together on our last night together.

Goodbye, Jenni! Perhaps the next time we see you will be for your wedding!

Gemma's Fourth Wedding

Last fall, we celebrated the wedding of my roommate from freshman year. How quickly the months have flown since then! Last weekend it was time for fairest Sarah to marry her Logan. Sarah and I roomed together for two years in college and were such good friends.


It was actually Gemma's fourth wedding, but it was her Mommy's first time being a bridesmaid! I was honored to be in Sarah's wedding, and had fun spending time with lots of girls I haven't seen since college.

The gentlemen all wore suspenders, which was fun!

They had their reception in a yellow barn which is part of a historic museum in Lancaster, PA (I believe).

Gemma was soo good. She happily hung out and played all Saturday morning while the bride and her maids all got ready. And she got to spend a lot of time with Daddy during the actual wedding.

Sarah's sister made all the gorgeous bouquets. She even put little clusters of blueberries into Sarah's bouquet, which is the most creative "something blue" I've ever seen!

Happy one week of marriage to the newlyweds, and may you know many blessed years as man and wife!

7 Months Old

How is our little Gemma already seven months? Whenever I start to feel sentimental over passed time, I remember that one lady from church shared with us, "They only get more fun!" (And sometimes I remember what John has told me before, "You can always have another one . . . although there is a limit to that!")

Gemma doesn't crawl yet, but she rolls and pivots herself about constantly! She's getting better at sitting up, too, and soon I expect that she'll be able to sit on the floor independently. She loves clapping her hands and "talking." She uses a lot of ma's, ba's, da's, some ga's, and recently ya's and ha's, and she also uses other vowel sounds with those favorite consonants.

At her six month appointment, Gemma was in the 97th percentile for height and at about 75th-80th percentile for weight and head size. She's definitely getting quite attached to Mommy and Daddy! But her little sin-nature is coming out, too. Whenever she has something that we have to take away from her, she starts crying. We're trying to teach her not to fuss at these times!

One day before her six month birthday, Gemma started bananas! That's what she's eaten the most of so far, but she's also had squash, chewed on a piece of apple and a piece of canteloupe, and today she had some organic baby oatmeal for the first time! She's also getting good at drinking from a straw, and she likes to grab for her Mommy's or Daddy's cup and put the straw right in her mouth! So far, she has loved every food that she's tried.

Yay! She's clapping her hands in the last one. Perhaps she's saying "thank you" to the friends who gave us the booster, but perhaps not, so I will. It works great, and we love it!

Little Thoughts on Love

Yesterday afternoon found me boiling up potato chunks and trying my hand at making potato salad for the first time ever. If my mother knew it, her jaw would probably have dropped right open, because when I was little I couldn't stand potato salad. Believe me, we were expected to eat what was put before us when we were growing up, but Mom and Dad did mercifully tend to allow each of us an exception to that rule. I didn't like peas but I ate them anyway, but potato salad absolutely made me gag. I still remember throwing it up as a four year old and getting it on my Care Bears shirt! (You're welcome for that!) And now here I was, not only attempting to make it, but also planning to eat some of it. John likes it a lot. And that's what love can do to a person.

Before we had a baby, John declared that he was not looking forward to changing diapers. I was impressed that he even expected to help with that job! But I, too, certainly didn't offer to do diaper checks during my nursery duties. Now that we have Gemma, diapers are no burden. John doesn't mind changing her cloth diapers, and we even almost get to the point of fighting over who gets to do it sometimes! That's what love can do to a person!

I know of a King whose people all hated Him and for thousands of years were not loyal subjects. Yet the King finally went and lived with the poorest of them, and taught and loved and healed them. And when their crimes warranted capital punishment, He offered to be killed for their sakes and to let them go free. He endured unspeakable agony in that death. But it was necessary for them to live with Him--risen again--in paradise someday, so it was completely worth it to that King.

And that's what love can do.

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Philippians 2:5-11