Elliot Jane's Newborn Pictures

Daddy has the week off work for Spring Break....and Mama is sooooo thankful.  As our little one grows, her personality is emerging.  There are moments when she is smiley and cooing and calm or sleeping.  And then there are times we are realizing she has a little stubborn streak like her parents and wants her own way already.  So it is great to have Daddy's help.  Especially as we deal with the mid-night screaming.

But for now, Elliot is napping.  Earlier this morning we had taken her out on a walk to calm her and it worked.  And, as I have quiet music playing in the background of our home, I am able to post some of her newborn pictures.  They were done by a company called "The Red Barn Photography."  The photographer is expanding her portfolio and used little Elliot as an infant model.  It was such a blessing to have her photos done for free!  Ellie did so well, and didn't cry through the whole session!

Here are some of my favorite photos that were captured.  She is a beauty....

Shower By Mail :)

Can I just say I have SUCH an amazing family?!?! :)  My cousins, aunts, and uncles from my mom's side went together and organized a shower by mail for us and little Ellie!!!  It was such a great idea....and made us feel so loved and special.  Jenn even went ahead and sent all the shower goodies and decor for Caleb to set up!  (While even considering all of his dietary restrictions!!) Here is a picture of what she sent...

We got Ellie dressed up in Daddy-inspired outfit today for the shower....her under armor onsie with a denim skirt and flower headband (she quickly took off the headband!).  It is his favorite outfit for her so far....sporty and girly.  It was just a little big on her though.  hahaha!  Me on the other hand appreciated that this was a shower by mail, meaning I could stay in my sweats for it and not get ready! I don't know how new mother's do it!

We were blown away by all the wonderful gifts that were sent!  Thank you, again, to each of you!!!  I am so excited to use all these things on our little lady.  :)

We are so blessed by each of you.....and we cannot wait to introduce you to our little lovely lady!! :)  THANK YOU!!!!

My Important Lesson

I have a rare moment, where Ellie is down and quiet  (awe....thankfully!!) and I just made some tea and scones my mother-in-law bought for me.  In reality, I probably should be sleeping.  They keep telling me to sleep when she sleeps.  But in a way, as badly as I need sleep, I also need "me" time to process and reflect and think.  So that is what I am doing.

There is so much that I want to write about Ellie's first two weeks of life...so many things that have happened, and already lessons learned.  (Yesterday was her two week birthday!)  But I feel like I need to take a step back from that to write about a lesson I learned the week before she was born.  It was too profound to not write about it.  And it is so personal I hesitate to even share it with the world...but I hope that it can encourage and help somebody else.

I feel like I learned a much needed lesson before Ellie came....that God does really hear my prayers.

I know for many that is a given.  Even for me, I have known it and preached it and talked about it.  But if I am honest, the last two years I have doubted in my heart how much God really does hear my prayers.  I have known in my head that He does...but doubted it in my heart.

You see, go back two years.  Caleb had flared up and I prayed for healing daily.  I wept and cried out and asked God to perform a miracle.  Just like I had asked for my mom, uncle, friends, among many who had suffered illnesses.  And God seemed to be saying "no"....that is until the church prayed over him.  It was a simple Sunday, and at the end of the service they encircled around Caleb and I in the church, and we all asked God to please give Caleb relief and to heal him.  And guess what?!  Truly miraculously, it happened!

I was sooooo ecstatic!  I praised God, along with many others!

But then, doubt crept into my own heart without me even knowing it.  Anytime I felt the need for prayers, I would often say to Caleb, "We should have people pray."  I found that I was trusting the effectiveness of other people's prayers more than my own.  I mean, after all, I had prayed for healing for many people and all of them died.  And now my husband was healed after other people prayed.

Now, in my head, I knew that this was not a truly accurate evaluation.  I tried not to believe the lie that God heard other people's prayers more than my own.  But if I am honest, in the quiet of my heart, I wanted to trust my prayers worked, but I doubted.

All this did was create striving in my heart....from lack of trust in God and His love for me and His power.

Well....the week before Ellie was born, I had a big lesson to learn.  And I will try to remember it for all the days and years ahead of us, as Ellie grows up.

It was a Monday, exactly one week before her due date.  Caleb came home and as he prayed before we ate dinner, he prayed that God would prevent him from flaring up.  This struck me as odd because on a normal day he simply thanks God for his good health.  So when he finished the prayer, I quickly asked, "Are your joints okay?" And he started stretching his hip.  And my heart sunk.  He told me he felt stiff in his hip and there was some fluid there.

The crazy thing is that I just had so much peace.  And I told him, "Okay, let me pray again.  God is in this.  He knows."  So I prayed.  And I know it began with, "Lord, we are just two simple people unworthy to ask, but we do...." and I prayed that Caleb wouldn't flare up.

Now to understand what I was asking...go back a year.  Caleb told me he had a little stiffness in his hip one night and the next day he could hardly walk when he got home from work.

We decided not to tell people until we knew really what was going on.  After we went to bed that night, I was up tossing and turning.  And about 2am I got up, and me and God had a little chat.  I told Him I really needed to know everything would be okay if he did flare up.  I needed my heart not to be anxious as we awaited the arrival of our little girl.  I was still up when Caleb got up to go to work.

We didn't tell anybody.  But the two of us simply prayed all day.  As anxiety came over me at times, I would remind myself that God already heard my prayers and I didn't need to worry.  I just tried trusting God all day.

And Caleb came home no worse than the day before!  The following day he came back a little better even.  But the whole week he was somewhat stiff...but he NEVER flared up!!  It was a miracle!!  That has never happened that way before!

By the time Ellie was born, although he still had some fluid in his hip, we weren't as concerned.  While at the hospital, we did have to monitor him and make sure he got his rest.  But God protected and healed him!

And today he is feeling great!

PRAISE GOD!!!!!

I feel like in many ways, that was one of the greatest lessons I could have learned during that time.  I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked, "What if he flares when you are pregnant?"  (Or things like that.)  It has fed my desire for control.  When I got pregnant I had to kill those thoughts completely in order to not worry.  And it almost happened....but it didn't!  God heard my prayer.  I didn't need to have everybody else pray, and trust their prayers more than mine. God heard my little prayer, from the depths of my heart and with whatever faith I had.  And He showed Caleb and Ellie and I favor, but protecting her daddy's health the very time she made her entrance into the world.

God is with us.  He loves us.  He hears us.

He hears me.

Miss Elliot Jane

Our sweet, little Elliot Jane made her appearance at 3:16pm on Tuesday afternoon, March 5th. We are so in love.  In fact, we didn't know that we could hold this much love in our hearts.  She is such a precious, special little lady.  We are blessed beyond measure.

The labor went by pretty fast...15 hours from first sign of labor to finish.  I woke Caleb up at 1:15am, after speaking with the triage nurse a couple of times, and we headed into the hospital.  We were actually pretty calm, in the midst of the excitement of it all.  Caleb was such a great support for me and we were once again teammates.

When we first met Ellie, I kept talking to her and telling her how much I loved her.  Caleb was overcome by emotions.  He was literally speechless for a few minutes.  He cut the cord as Ellie laid on me for over a hour.  Without going into too much detail, they had to get a surgeon in there to sew me back up from the mass, widespread tearing that happened during delivery.  It took over an hour for her to finish that job.  And then, Caleb spent some time holding her against his bare chest.

She weighed 8 lbs 7 oz, and was 19.5 inches long.  Her Apgar score was 8-9.  So Elliot is a healthy and happy baby!  The only thing we had to monitor was her jaundice.  She was at a pretty high level that they almost kept us longer at the hospital.  But instead, they let us take her home on Thursday under the condition we went back the following day to have her reevaluated.  She hadn't progressed.  And by Sunday, when she was checked again, her levels had dropped considerably.

The following are all pictures from the hospital....

Little Ellie is so sweet.  My favorite thing is that she started smiling from the first day of her life. She smiled her first smile when Daddy was holding her.  And since then, she smiles multiple times a day.  Some smiles are half smiles, others closed mouth smiles, and then there are some where she is beaming ear to ear.  It is just so sweet.  She also sticks out her lower lip quite frequently.  It melts my heart, and every time she does, I kiss it! And then she turns it into an expression where she puckers her lips.  All to say, she is very expressive.  Caleb keeps saying that she has my expressions and hopefully she doesn't have his inability to hide his expressions! hahaha!

And now we have been at home for over a week.  Ellie is napping and I should be.  I am so, so tired. Although she is such a good baby, motherhood is proving to be a pretty exhausting feat.  But so worth it.  So, with the sound of laundry going (again), I am finally able to drink some coffee and try to catch up on things like the blog.  I am hoping that I can post more about her first week at home by tomorrow.  These days are so precious and I just want to make sure they are documented.  Ellie literally changes by the day.  And I am constantly told it goes by fast.  So I am just trying to soak up every little moment, expression, snuggle that I can.  Elliot Jane is one loved girl.  I just pray that she knows it and feels it even now at this young age.  Our family is blessed.