First Week Madness

In a perfect world I would have been able to capture my thoughts within a day or two of giving birth to our sweet new baby girl, however as is typical of our lives things have been a bit crazy.

Here are the basic stats:

EvaKate Liana Kelly was born at 11:46 pm, she weighed 7 lbs 4 oz and was 19 inches long

She is beautiful, and perfect and none of us can get enough of her. The boys wake up each morning and the first thing they ask is to see their baby sister.

Her birth was a bit stressful, but overall went incredibly well. Chris calls our midwife a miracle worker, and she really is. With any other doctor we would have had a c-section.

EvaKate is such a good baby. She only cries if she's trying to go to the bathroom or hungry. She's put together 5 hour stretches of sleep for the last 4 nights and is eating wonderfully. We all just stare at her a lot in amazement.

As for the rest of our lives, Josh went into the doctor for an ear infection the day after we had her. A couple days later he started coughing quite a bit, then it turned into all day where he could barely talk between coughs. That night he started saying he couldn't breathe and got a fever, so per orders of our peds answering service into the ER him and Chris went. After a fairly useless trip (because any place not specializing in children generally is) they returned home about 2 am and tried to get some sleep.

We went into the pediatricians office the next morning (EvaKate already had an appointment) with much better results. Josh had an in office breathing treatment and oral steroids as well as prescriptions for both. A virus brought on a severe bronchial infection. Joy. Virus. So we've been trying to keep Josh away from the baby which is as hard on us as it is him. Jack also has some form of it that is mainly acting as cold like symptoms for now. We're praying it stops with him so we don't have a sick newborn on our hands!

Amidst that we have also had some very difficult news about Chris's mom which I may be updating more about later. Please keep her in your prayers.

Basically the first week of baby girls life has been a crazy one.

Chris went back to work yesterday and Josh went back to school today, so today will be our first day of being back on a typical schedule. I have time to write this, so we are doing good so far : )

Praying we get back to a level of normalcy soon as I think for all of us (particularly Chris and I in our first born nature) it will help us handle the craziness in weeks to come.

What's in a name?

Warning, pre-written post I will put up after baby girl makes her arrival.

We are kind of into names around here. Chris and I both think that they are important, and that their origin and meaning say a lot about who they will become.

So does God. He changes peoples names in the bible to represent transformation and who they are becoming, and the Old Testament gives example after example of how the meaning of the persons name represented who or what they did with their life.

With that in mind, and wanting to give our children something to ascribe to from the get go...we've been fairly considerate about names.

All of our childrens names (with the exception of Kate) are Hebrew. We were open to greek as well originally, but Hebrew just ended up working out. And seeing as how most of the names in the bible are Hebrew, it just made life easier.

While we were dating we said we wanted to have two boys and a girl. So grateful God has honored our desires in that. We were unsure about the girls name, but always loved the boy names Josh and Jack. So there was little to debate when our precious surprise firstborn was declared to be a boy what the name would be.

Joshua is a biblical rock star, a man of great faith and leadership, all prayers we have for Josh. It means God is salvation. What a great reminder to have. Aaron (his middle name) is also Chris's middle name. A way to name him after his daddy, and if there was ever a man I wanted him to live up to be like, it would be his daddy! It means exalted, strong.

We loved Jack, but obviously, it isn't Hebrew. We started throwing around other names that we really liked in the process of trying to have Jack (a bumpy 6 month process). We kept coming back to Jacob, and after realizing we could call him Jack or Jacob with that name (both of which we loved) we were sold. Jacob means supplanter (which means to replace something with another) and Matthew means gift from God. Not only was Jack a complete blessing from the Lord during a difficult time, but Matthew is also Chris's brothers name. Jacob in the bible was scrappy, and even during difficult times was willing to wrestle with God, but not walk away.

Picking a biblical name for a girl is a bit more difficult. Not only are there much fewer choices, but most of them mean sorrow or bitterness. Not exactly something I want my daughter ascribing to. Between the time of having Josh and Jack I had found the name Eva and Liana and loved both of them. Chris didn't buy into them right away since we both tend towards more simple and classic tastes, but came around eventually.

When we found out with this one she was a girl we didn't really have to question what the name would be. Eva Liana. However in the five years since we picked the name Eva (Ava) has become quite the popular name. Having both of the boys name be in the top 10 and looking at having another child with another top 10 name, I wanted to spice it up a bit. Going classic with boys is almost a must in our opinion, but with girls you can be a little bit more funky. So we started trying to think of ways to do just that.

The main idea we had was to add something to Eva. We debated EvaGrace, EvaHope, EvaJoy, and most importantly, EvaKate. I kept coming back to Kate. Again Chris took some time to warm up to it, since he likes classic to begin with, but finally came around. EvaKate Liana.

Kate is special. I was always Katie growing up. Until I met Chris. A lot was going on in my life about that time, and God was really shaping me into the woman He wanted me to be. I remember one night within the first couple dates Chris and I had been on, he randomly asked me what I thought of Kate. He had decided he like it, and that it sounded like an author and wanted to start calling me that. Cute guy I was already smitten with changing my name? Sure, I'd go with it. Looking back I feel like it was somewhat of a defining moment, kind of like the Saul to Paul conversion. It's a point I can look back to and know that God changed my path about that time and the one I went with (Kate) is the one that would bring the most glory to Him.

Most everyone who calls me Kate knows me through Chris, and I smile every time I hear it. What I've tried to be about since becoming "Kate" is much of what I hope my daughter will want to be about as well- faith, strength, and love. Conveniently, it also means pure which is also one of our prayers for her!

Eva is a derivative of Eve and means giver of life. Not only do we as women have the opportunity to literally give life, but God has also placed within us the capability to draw out life and inspire life in everyone we come in contact with. Our prayer is that our daughter would inspire life in everyone she meets, and point them to THE giver of life.

Liana means my God has answered, which is quite appropriate. Not only did He answer our prayer for another child, but he answered our prayer for a girl! She will be a daily reminder of prayers that God has answered for us!

So there is the long winded post on where the boys, and most importantly our new daughters names came from.

Hanging Out

What a week.

Baby girl is still hanging out. Already a day longer than either of her brothers ever chose to.

God has decided now would be a good time to remind me that I control nothing in my life. NOTHING. And that no matter how many plans I make, or how well thought out I am, with one phone call, or one piece of news my whole world can easily be flipped upside down.

All fun things to think about when you're already dealing with the unknown of your impending labor and what all it will entail.

And I thought this would be a less stressful process since we weren't moving a month or 10 days after having this baby. Turns out moving may have been a helpful distraction....

I've been getting lots of advice to enjoy my last little bit of pregnancy, especially since we are thinking this will more than likely (according to our plans, but knowing God can change all that in a second) at the very least be the last one I birth. While I will say that this pregnancy has gone much smoother than the last two, and I'm holding up better with less pain and still sleeping fairly well, I am NOT one of those people who think this is an enjoyable process.

I'm already planning big things like being able to sleep on my stomach and give my husband a real hug, not to mention being able to actually eat AT the table instead of a foot away from it. Yes it is neat (when she's not shoving her foot into my ribs) to feel life inside of me, but I am much more looking forward to watching it happen in front of me. But that's just how I roll.

Josh came up to me the other day and puts his arm around me and says "mommy, I'm really sorry it's going to hurt when the baby comes out". I leaned down and looked at him and told him that it hurt really bad when he came out too, but that it was worth every bit of pain because I got to have such an awesome boy. I love how sweet both my boys are.

Generally I think pregnancy stinks. But if ten months and one day is what it takes to get one of my amazing boys, or this precious girl, than by golly I'll suck it up (having a few minor meltdowns along the way of course) and deal with it as best I can. TOTALLY worth it.

So we're all hanging out and waiting for Miss Thing to arrive. Josh has told me several times he thinks she is coming on Saturday. That would work well with our plans. So far both of the boys have come on the weekend and around a meal out. Guess we should eat out a lot this weekend!

Hoping to meet baby girl within a couple of days!