Although Mommy has neglected this blog for such a long time; neglecting you, sweet Ellenor, I have not.
Ellenor is a bright, ray of sunshine! She has grown into her big personality, much like her long, dark hair that keeps growing. It is getting slightly lighter/more red in the sun. Ellenor likes to flap her arms. She likes to “grrrr” and “ahhh” and say “hey”, “mama”, “wawa” (water), “bbbbbuh” (she wants Mommy’s milk, or bed), and “oooo”.
At her 9 month check-up she weighs 17 lbs. 4 oz. Her weight is in the 25%, but her height is in the 50% for her age and she has always had a large head (trying to keep up with all that hair). She gets TONS of comments about how pretty she is with her dark hair and blue eyes. She has always been interested in food. She is not a picky eater and eats anything we do. We call her “2-egg Oh-nor” (because she eats 2 scrambled eggs every morning) and usually an applesauce or Nutri-grain bar with it. David comments that this is approximately his breakfast size. I’m convinced that she could eat an entire All-Star Breakfast at Waffle House if she chooses. She likes those applesauce and fruit-blends “on the go” in those squeeze pouches as well as eggs, cooked veggies and mandarin oranges and bananas.
If Ellenor could jump up and run, she would. She is interested in EVERYTHING Miriam does. She is a proud little sister to sit next to M in the double stroller that we were gifted. She has taken an interest with other babies and enjoys her playdates with Gabe, Ruby, Evy (even though Evy is claimed by Miriam) and Natalie. She can “rock” back and forth in the crawling position, although she has not mastered crawling. She likes to test the waters of standing up, but cannot pull up yet. She does like sitting up (since about 6 months) and can scoot around on her bum or lean all the way forward in a split to shimmy around. This month she outgrew her LulaGo Bassinet (the greatest travel bassinet there is, in my opinion) and we put her in the crib, in Miriam’s room. They are great roommates (although Ellenor sleeps in the office/guest room for afternoon naps so that Miriam can have “Miriam time”).
She really loves that she is “a big kid baby” now and can look around, sit up and now trying to be mobile to be a part of whatever we are doing. She still loves the baby carrier and the stroller and loves car rides as long as Miriam is back there with her. She loves being around people she knows and as long as she’s fed, she smiles and talks a lot. She loves to travel with us, as a family. We’ve been to the year-round indoor pool (W.L. Stephens Pool) THREE times now and she takes to water like a fish. We have taken her to the mountain house with Grammy and Pops and enjoyed Santa’s Land. We have gone to Rock Hill a few times. We have gone to stay in a cabin at Lake Jocassee. And she loves being outside (as long as we are there of course).
We love you so much Ellenor! You are becoming such a sweet little girl. When Mommy packed up the bassinet for the final time this week, I cried a little. When did you get SO big? You have Daddy and I wrapped around your finger (and Miriam too, although Miriam is the bossy boss, right now).
The birth of my 2nd daughter was so different than my 1st. That’s what I felt God say to me about this go around: “it will be different.” In case you missed Miriam’s birth story, I’ll briefly recap: 22-hour labor, lots of interventions, she still wasn’t coming and resulted in an unplanned c-section. This is scary to admit but the whispering voice of the Holy Spirit told me that morning, 5/1/14 through a feeling”you will have a c-section” to which my inner-dialogue said “hell no.” (Call it pride, call it wanting to give it a “good ol’ try” as a 1st time mom, call it whatever), but had I walked into that hospital fully trusting what God had told me and changed “my birth plan” it would have saved us/me (who am I kidding, ME) about 11 hours. To say that was a crazy day would be an understatement. But she and I were both kept safe. The Lord’s presence was all over our room and the OR and we were blessed with the sweetest of nurses. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t “have the magical birth experience I wanted” and spent way too much time grieving it and beating myself up about it and feeling so ashamed. Thank God that’s over! I’ve healed a lot from that experience. I’ve turned trauma and sadness and confusion and “why me?” into joy and thankfulness (I’ve had lots of inner-healing prayer, or SOZO to help with that) 🙂
So this time around: new location, new hospital, new OB. My hospital and OB do not practice or advocate VBACS, so with that option off the table (because home-births are also out of the question for our family…not knocking it, but not for our family), both David and I agreed beforehand that we would like a scheduled repeat c-section. Fast-forward through a fairly easy and wonderful pregnancy and at 39 weeks, we were ready to meet our Ellenor! It’s funny that with Miriam she was almost 2 weeks late and I prayed “please come today, please come already”, ate whole pineapples and spicy foods and tried every freaking trick in the book to kickstart labor and NADA, but with Ellenor I prayed, “please stay in there, please” and felt way more relaxed and less anxious (for knowing exactly when she was coming) 🙂
The night before surgery, on May 2nd, David and I treated ourselves to a date night consisting of coffee, Barnes and Noble, Papa Johns and the Marriott (right across the street from East Cooper Medical). It was awesome! Then we woke up at 4:30 to cruise into the hospital at 5am for paperwork (all those questions!) and getting hooked up and prepped. The hardest part was waiting the 2 hours to get started. Our friend, Alicia is in training to be a midwife and doula so she came to the hospital to “doula-nate” (our word, not hers) and to watch my c-section. She was amazing and I can fully advocate for c-section mamas (unplanned or elective) to hire a doula! At her initial suggestion, I wasn’t sure about how much she could “do”, but was I wrong. She met us at the hospital early (she’s got 2 babies of her own), prayed with us beforehand, kept our excited-nervous jitters down, got David coffee and offered to take pictures while we were in the O.R.. She also offered to stay with me at all times if David needed to leave with the baby so that I would never be alone. (um, yes, please!) Afterwards, she stayed with us in recovery, offered support with breastfeeding, offered to get us anything we needed and was always there as a calming presence and as a friend. Thanks Alicia! You already are an amazing doula!
7:15am hits and after talking with the anesthesiologist, I make a last minute decision (well, made the night before) that I wanted to watch my c-section. Not the whole “slice and dice” bit, just the part where my daughter is born. And I wanted skin-to-skin as soon as possible. Easily enough, the doctors were ok with that. Done. Then, I find out that I have to walk alone to the OR…wait, what? David and Alicia had to stay behind until I was fully prepped. You don’t know how surreal it is to walk into an OR as the patient, until you have to (last time I was wheeled in on so many drugs, I don’t recall it because I was fighting sleep) so this time I’m fully alert and the nurses are like, “ok, let’s go.” But this sweet, amazing nurse, Ms. Connie, comes and embraces me and prays over me while I’m getting my spinal inserted and that calmed me down a lot. Fun fact: a spinal is instant numbness as opposed to an epidural gradually kicks in. Didn’t know that, but I felt SO relaxed and told my nurse, Susan “wow, I feel so at peace and relaxed. I bet all moms say that coming in here.” She said, “um, no, they don’t.” Did you know that there is a countdown on the wall of the OR counting backwards from 35 minutes? Not sure what happens if it hits 0:00 but we didn’t have to find out.
Ms. Connie called roll and David and Alicia came back to stand next to me. When they were ready (which unbeknownst to me they had started the surgery) and they lowered the sheet so that I could see (keep in mind, from my vantage point, I have a bowling ball on my stomach, so I’m spared seeing my own blood and guts) and I saw them pull her out of me. It was the most surreal, wonderful, amazing moment. I was crying happy tears before they even lowered the sheet and I lost it when she came out screaming. I think I said “hey baby.”Miss Ellenor Beverly was born at 7:44am and she was perfect at 7 lbs, 5 oz, 20 in. long. I got to hold her skin-to-skin after a few minutes while they checked her over. She laid on my chest for 20 minutes or so then they were going to take her out of the room with David to do the APGAR tests and all that jazz. I was SO thankful that Alicia stayed with me while I was getting stitched up. Then I was wheeled into recovery where David handed me back Ellenor and Ms. Connie helped me with breastfeeding (cue nausea), but Ellenor latched on immediately like a champ and that’s been an easy road for us.
Now she’s a little over a week old and we are so in love! Miriam is adjusting well and loves her baby sister! While I wouldn’t say that recovering from a c-section is “fun”, maybe because it’s my second time and not my first, it IS easier the second time around. Miriam’s birth was a testimony to the Lord’s goodness and GRACE. Ellenor’s birth was a testimony of REDEMPTION and healing. Everything went so smoothly and wonderfully! In Blake Healy’s book, The Veil, he describes the scenes of watching his children being born. Because Blake sees angels, he describes that at each birth, “there is an angel in the room…who can hardly contain his excitement; with anticipation that as soon as the baby is born, he or she is assigned for life to that angel.” So I envisioned with Ellenor’s birth (and can envision with Miriam’s too) that there was an angel in that OR that was dancing and trembling and jumping up and down with joy in the moments leading up to her birth. Dar la luz–to bring to light!
Team Carter's Big Adventure 