everything matters

Elenora was born on Monday night after a hard but rapid labor. B was strong. I admire and love her more than ever.

This new baby is amazing. Her face can drive me to tears. Her cries drive us to sadness. Her sleep is the most precious thing I've ever seen.

Each moment is spent sustaining and enjoying this new little life. Each day begins with tremendous responsibility and tremendous joy. We're a little family now, and each activity is packed with importance as we try to get this three-person situation up and running...

Praise God for the blessing of life.

unprepared

There are many things to be considered before the birth of your first child. Birthing classes address many of the questions, while eager relatives and helpful books aid in enlightening one's perspective and enabling one's preparedness. Eventually, the nursery is ready and the birth plan is established. You declare yourself prepared.

One thing that I wasn't prepared for was the length of this wait. "Any day now" is getting old. Trying to prepare for A. the most significant day of your life or B. another average day is a challenging task. Each day presents itself as a question mark. However, one can't help but prefer that the day produce the baby and be amazing and not just be another average day. But so far, each day has come and gone as nothing more than another notch on the pregnancy calendar. 5 days late now, with no assurance of anything but continued question marks.

God's plans are good and right. My feelings are stupid. Apparently this pattern begins in childhood and continues to the grave. I am truly looking forward to the birth of this child, an occasion where hopefully my feelings can actually be a good thing.

tick tock tick tock.....

So, B's due date is in three days. About two weeks ago, we found ourselves saying "any day now." It's still any day. We're expecting. But yet, each hour passes as being unlikely to produce the long-anticipated Ella. But one of these hours is actually going to......amazing! We've taken to making the reality-based prediction that she's going to be born "on her birthday."

B finished every single work day she had planned on finishing. The nursery is a complete success. The car seat is installed, the socks- the little, tiny, pink socks- are washed. The stage has been set and now the the clock ticks until little Ella's birthday.