I am so happy to have her. She is just...well, wonderful! She is sweet, calm and a soothing peaceful presence amidst some of the other, ahem, craziness around here. ;) I am also so glad to not be pregnant anymore! Thank you God! That last month, the ninth one, was just...not fun. Nothing out of the ordinary there but with the sweltering heat (over 100 degrees) and the all around soreness I was kind of miserable. Now, a month after the birth, I feel great. Looking into Haley's dark eyes and holding her close as she nurses makes it all worth it. All of it. Don't you agree? Just look at her. She is so worth it!
The kids just adore her. Although there were some episodes for a couple of weeks after she was born with the youngest boys, all is more or less well now. Every single one of her older siblings dotes on her, especially Sammie of course.
It never ceases to amaze me how well my Lord knows me and cares about my little quirks, some of them being seeing patterns and various details in numbers. For example, I now have boy-boy-girl-boy-boy-girl. Cool, huh? And even though one never knows for sure when a baby will actually come, my due date was the 24th and I was told might be even later, none of my children have come early...I was thinking deep within how neat it would be if her birth date was 1.23.14 (see? 1-2-3-4?). Guess what? When I went into labor on the 22nd I was totally thinking I'm not in a hurry till we hit midnight, then she can come anytime after that b/c I was pretty sure I wouldn't be in labor close to 24 hours!! Also, by 5 am once it seemed that she was taking her time I just knew she was a numbers girl like me and was waiting till 6 because she's number 6 and sure enough, 6 am came, the sun was rising and into the world she came!! (part of her name means 'light' too) For me, seeing God's hand written all over this was/is so AWESOME!! From the very beginning He showed me this was His doing. We had not originally planned on a sixth but at 36 I have six and...what would I do without her?!?!
I was well taken care of thanks to my husband and our SIM family. Dan and my friends have allowed me to take my time getting back into everything, allowing me to savor every moment of the first weeks with this sweetness.
When Judah was born, being at RGBI allowed me to do that too and I thought I would never have a repeat like that (and I thought he was the last but we've never been 100% sure). Oh my! I was blown away with the number of meals our team provided for us, how often they watched our kids so we could get Haley's paper work done and just being great friends I could show off my baby too who oohed and aahed with me. I tend to not like to share important events like these very well with others, normally wanting it to be just my family. Again God protected that desire for the first week and then when I was ready almost our whole team ended up at the guest house for one thing or another and I wanted to share, have company, etc. Phil. 4:6,7 ring a bell? About two weeks after she was born, almost a month we were in the city, I was willing and ready to go home. Haley had a slight fever the day we were going to leave so we went to the hospital before we left just to make sure she was OK because of where we live. We got back to SF on a Tuesday evening and the YWAM group returned the next evening. The six YWAMers (I can call them that right?!) stayed with us till Saturday helping with an evangelistic youth event that Friday and a huge gathering (Encuentro Familiar) of all SIM related churches on the camp property. I didn't mind hosting them again b/c we had met them before and they were a great group of young adults. Haley already is a good sleeper and when/if she cries it's a quiet cry so it didn't even cross my mind about others worrying about sleeping with a newborn. Good thing it wasn't an issue!! I got help with meals, didn't have to wash dishes, got to show my lil' darlin' off some more and they were great with the other kids.
So after all that we've been hanging out just us mostly, slowing getting unpacked and resettled, taking lots of pictures, having fun finishing up the girls' room and de-girling the boys, cuddling & kissing & cooing lots over our new baby doll :), and this week gearing up for school lessons and a stricter schedule as we end our long summer vacation.
Gratitude is what I am full of right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord and wonderful friends and family who've been praying for us!
The more I look at her the more I see Dan. So precious! You have such a beautiful family sis and I cannot wait to see you all! <3
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