LIfe with Lucy

Life without Lucy seems so long ago, and a little hazy. Life with Lucy is a gift from God and I'm so thankful for the bundle of joy she is in our lives. A normal day with Lucy looks like this:
wake up when Lucy wakes up (around 7am normally) and feed her, burp her, change her, play with her, set her under her play gym until she gets fussy, then rock her for a couple minutes singing the Birds upon the Treetop and Jesus Loves Me, then lay her down. This repeats every 3 hours throughout the day, except from 2-6 I go to work and Scott feeds her, burps her, changes her, plays with her, and puts her to sleep. Every other night she gets a bath and she loves those. She almost always needs a bath due to spit up all in her hair etc.
She really is a good baby I realize. She's been sleeping through the night since 8/9 weeks and she sleeps a lot during the day giving me time to get things done or catch up on my sleep. She also stays content playing on her own under her play gym and doesn't have to be held all the time. Yes, she spits up on everything and everybody all the time, but you get used to that. She went to the church nursery for the first time last Sunday and was very good. She isn't picky about who's holding her. The only time it's hard is when her routine is thrown off by church or going out a lot. THen she doesn't know if she's hungry or tired. So the routine has worked best for me - that is eat/wake/sleep routine from BabyWise.[Image]
We've done cloth diapers since she was 2 weeks, and we love them. I would encourage anybody to use cloth for more than one reason. I thought I was just doing them to save money (which I save a lot of money) but I also like using them because I rarely have a blowout and they don't have any dioxins or chemicals. Plus they are so cute!! I don't mind that she has a big diaper butt. I think they're adorable on her. So if anyone wants more info on cloth diapers I'd love to answer any questions. Oh, and they make cloth diapering so easy these days compared to when we were babies. It's not what you think. :)
Anyway, I count myself blessed to be a mommy and thank God for the opportunity though it's a great responsibility. I've wanted to be a mommy every since I can remember. My mom told me I used to be content playing house with dolls in my room all day by myself. Though my desire is/was to be a stay at home mommy, I am working part time right now. Though it's a struggle sometimes, God's showing me his grace in my life. God know our days, even when they were yet to be.
I'm so thankful to be able to pass down the truths of Scripture to my children. There's nothing so valuable to be able to pass down than the Word of God and His Love. I'm trying to view the small moments of my life as important moments because each little moment makes up our lives. Each day is a teaching day to Lucy of the way to live and the way to be. What a tremendous responsibility I feel.
Titus 2 says "teach the older women to be reverent in the way they life, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

Lucy Ellen's Birth Story (finally)

Well, now that Lucy is 2 months old it's about time I post something on her birth story. I'll start with our plans to induce. I had always thought it was silly to induce unless there was a really good reason so that the doctor recommended it, but I changed my mind as her due date was nearing (funny thing). And let me tell you, if you haven't seen my pictures before she came out at the hospital, I was huge. I started to get a little self conscious of being seen in public since my clothes weren't fitting as well and I was huge. It also gets a little tiring hearing "you're huge!" all the time. So anyway, I also wanted my mom to be able to be here for the delivery and for the week after to help me adjust. So Friday, April 30th was the day we decided to induce. April 30th happened to be Scott's mom's birthday as well as Oaks Day here in Louisville which is a holiday (a day before the Kentucky Derby) so I had to make sure the doctor on call would be alright with that day. And it so happened that the doctor on call was the same doctor that delivered my nephew Luke when Katie and Chris lived here six years ago, Dr. Kelly Miller.

So, at 6:00am we arrived at Baptist Hospital East to have our munchkin. It felt so strange to think that we were finally going to meet the little person inside. By about 7:30 they had me all hooked up with the IV and pitocin. It was not comfortable I remember well and I was hungry. They told me not to eat anything after midnight the night before. By about 9:30 the doctor came and checked on me. And I hadn't progressed much, I was about 2 cm. She said she would come back around noon to break my water. In the meantime I had still not progressed except for feeling slight contractions that didn't even hurt yet. Finally around 12:30-1:00, the doctor came to break my water. That was a weird sensation! They told me to let them know when the pain level got to about 4 because then they could give me an epidural. After 5 minutes or so, I asked for the epidural through tears and shivers. I couldn't believe how painful it got so fast. So while it was about a 20 minute wait for the epidural, they gave me statol(sp?) which makes you really loopy so that you don't care as much about the pain. Ha, it definitely made me loopy and i could hardly answer anyone's questions. But at least I was able to relax a bit more. Then the Chinese guy with the needle came in! I am not all sure of what they did back there, but it definitely took the pain away. My mom didn't realize that it would completely numb my legs and feet, and I sensed it made her a bit nervous. So an hour later they checked me and i had progressed a couple more centimeters. Then they switched nurses and the new nurse didn't realize how fast i had progressed since the water broke, so she didn't check on me till about 5:00. When she did, she informed us that I was ready to push. But we had to call the doctor. The doctor needed us to wait a few minutes before i started pushing. At about 5:15 I started pushing. Right away we knew this baby had dark curly long hair. When the doctor came in I did much better because she was a really good coach. I realized I could push much harder. So with Scott and Mom by my side Lucy Ellen was born at 5:48pm with just 30 minutes of pushing. She was 7 pounds even and they said she was 18 3/4 inches (but two days later the pediatrician said 20.5 inches). She looked at me with the cutest expression when they laid her on me and I was filled with emotions I had never felt before. They asked me if I was crying because I was sick or emotional. It was definitely the later. The whole experience was so amazing and impossible to describe the feelings. I was overwhelmed with thankfulness to God for this amazing miracle! Several hours later I got to see my baby again all cleaned up. They had put the cutest yellow ribbon in her hair. I thought for sure she must have been the cutest baby there. And that's the story of Lucy Ellen's birth!