A Momentous Occasion

Here is Nora:

One Year

Two Years

Please note the child had barely any hair even at two years old. She was the definition of mullet - and it was a natual mullet, no styling involved:) It took a long time for this girl to have hair long enough to do anything with - barettes, pigtails, braids, etc. By the time she had hair long enough to do anything with, she wouldn't let me touch it - not that I'm girly enough to know what to do with it anyway...

About a year ago, I asked Nora if she wanted to get her hair cut. She told me that she would get it cut when she was 5 (she's going to do a lot of things when she turns 5). I wasn't too eager to have her get her hair cut because it took sooooo long for her to have hair worth cutting. And her hair was beautiful - natural layers, natural highlights - just beautiful. So I didn't argue with the haircut-at-5-years plan.

For the last few months, though, I've been pushing it a little more. Her hair was so difficult to comb. The ends were damaged. She would scream while we combed her hair after she got a bath - even after putting conditioner and detangler in it - she would cry if we combed it while it was dry. Always knots. Always pulling fistfulls of hair out with the comb. It was time to get the hair cut, but she was stuck on 5 years.


Yesterday, however, I got word that a friend of mine was having her cousin come to her house to cut her hair. I tagged onto that idea like a child not wanting to be left behind:) Hmmmmm. 5 minutes away. Nora's friends would be there. I could chat with my friend. Simple decision on my part, now the tough part was getting Nora on board... Wasn't as difficult as I anticipated. All I had to do was say, "Do you want to go to Jake and Luke's house and get your hair cut?" There was about 45 seconds of silent decision making and I got the official nod of approval (she likes Jake and Luke and their brother Jonah enough to sit through something as scary as a haircut).

So we went. And she was soooo good. She sat still for 30 minutes. And now she is definitely a big little girl. I can't believe the difference. And she loves it too. Take a look at my girl and marvel at how much hair she got cut off:)

Here we go!!! Shoulder length hair - she's so big:)

Ladies and Gentlemen, our Bug is 1

*If you're not up for reading a delivery story, skip to the pictures below it... This post is not really written for anyone except for me as a way to document my memories:)

One year ago today I was pregnant and hoping that my doctor would be able to induce me after I went in for my appointment in the morning. I was 39 weeks, he had kind of promised that he would induce me on that morning, but when I went in for my appointment he told me that the hospital was pretty full and he didn't think he could get me in. I weighed my options - beg for him to find a way and have the baby's birth be convenient and work within our family's schedule (Dave had cleared his schedule for the rest of the week and his mom was on her way out to our house for the rest of the weekend) or wait to have the baby naturally. When Dr. Mac told me that he would be out of town for the rest of the weekend and would likely not be able to deliver the baby if I went into labor on my own, my choice was made for me. I begged.

He told me to wait for him in the waiting room. Fifteen minutes later he called me up to the front desk and whispered "You are to go to the hospital and tell them that you have not felt the baby move in 24 hours. I got you in because of lack of fetal movement." He was very quiet about it and I wasn't going to argue with him - we were having this baby today - yea!

So we went. The nurses hooked me up to the monitors and were very relieved to see movement and called the doctor to see what he wanted to do. He, of course, told them to induce me and the nurses gave me an IV and started the pitocin. He came in around 1 or 2 to break my water. I talked to PD around 1:00 - she was down the hall being induced, too. She was dilated to 3 - so was I. The race was on. She had an epidural, I did not and I was determined to win this one:)

At 2:00 I was watching General Hospital and becoming increasingly annoyed with the storyline. There was a train crash and a bunch of the residents of Port Charles were trapped in a tunnel under ground. One of them, Alexis, had gone into labor and was fully dilated to 10 and was barely showing any signs of pain. I've delivered two babies without any drugs or an epidural - believe me, at 10cm I was not calmly trying to decide what my best option was. Alexis had an emergency c-section right there in a tunnel - and the doctor did it with a butter knife. Nice.

At around 4pm I was in severe pain - I was having back labor and it was awful. Dr. Mac came in to check on me and I wasn't progressing very quickly. I told him that if PD and I reached 10 at the same time I got to go first because I didn't have an epidural. He agreed:)

5pm - I was at 8 and was crying and sweating through every contraction. These were totally different than what I had with Nora and Ryann. Back labor felt like there were eagle talons underneath my lower back muscles on the left side and with each contraction the eagle ripped the muscle away from my body. It was excruciating. I was not going to ask for an epidural, but my nurse asked me if I wasn't sure that I'd like something for the pain. I asked if it was too late to get an epidural. She immediatley called the anesthesiologist to come in. It took about 15 minutes... as soon as it was done my entire body relaxed. By the time I laid back down on the bed I was at 10 and ready to go. But so was PD.

Dr. Mac told her that since she was there earlier than me (and I ended up getting the epidural) it was only fair that she delievered first. So Georgia's BFF was born at 5:30pm. Shortly after, Dr. Mac made his way down to my room where I was resting comfortably, not feeling a THING. I started pushing at 6pm. With Nora and Ryann I pushed for 10 minutes and they were born, but this was different. Because of the epidural I could not feel anything - I couldn't feel how to do what I was supposed to do. So Dr. Mac ordered them to back down the epidural and finally at 7:39pm our Bug was born.

Dr. Mac exclaimed that she was HUGE. HUGE! I looked over at the scale and it said 7-9 and I said "She's not huge" and he said, "Well she is for you!" She was beautiful and we were happy to welcome yet another girl into our family. The first thing Dave and I said was "Look at that hair! Wow!" Nora and Ryann were bald, this baby had a full head of black, black hair. And by full head, I mean I could put barettes in it already.

She was beautiful and was so good and so perfect. Of course, we fell in love immediately and our lives have never been the same. We love our Bug - Happy Birthday Baby!

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months

Six Months

Seven Months

Eight Months

Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

Twelve Months

A girl and her dress

Some people (Gram) have told me that I need to post more pictures of Ryann... I just want to be clear that I do not favor the other two over Ryann when it comes to the camera, Ryann usually won't
a) sit still long enough for a picture
b) smile for the camera
c) keep her eyes open

I have very few clear pictures of Ryann smiling - her smile, you know, the smile that each kid has that you just HAVE to capture on film? Well hers is fleeting and terribly hard to catch in the short time between pushing the button and the camera clicking.

But because someone inSISted on wearing a dress, tights and boots today I convinced her to have a photo shoot. So for all the fans of our little Sweets, here she is in all of her dressed up glory. I'm not sure God makes children that are much cuter than this:)