Ella Claire

Ella is sleeping contently in her swing and sweet Thomas is putting Aaron to bed.
We are home. Ahhh...it feels absolutely wonderful to be home.

Ella Claire...my daughter is finally here. The one word I can find to describe how I feel is: complete. My family feels so complete now! She fits perfectly with us and the transition has been incredibly easy. Aaron is an adoring brother and has shown nothing but pure affection, gentleness and tenderness. He always wants to hold her and any time she wimpers or even make the slightest noise, he rushes to her side and makes sure she is OK. I get so emotional, because it couldn't be better....
Thomas is amazing. Watching him hold Ella in his strong arms just melts my heart. He uses the same "love-names" for her and he does for me and I just MELT! (Sugar Bear, Sugar Baby, etc...) He dotes on her constantly and I can already see his fatherly protection beginning to form. She is amazingly blessed to have such an incredible Daddy. ....ahhh! I'm crying already!

The C-Section went smoothly on Friday. There was such peace that morning. Thank you so much for your prayers for us.... We went in, got hooked up and prepped and before I knew it, I was feeling the doctor pull a small life out of me! That first day went well. Pain pills helped tremendously. Friday night was a little more rough due to some catheter complications, but that worked out and I was able to rest. Saturday morning they took out the catheter and IV and I made that first painful walk. Overall, the recovery was good. Not as easy as my first pregnancy/delivery, but it could've been worse. I had alot of what the nurses referred to as "gas pain". I think that term does not give NEAR as much credit to the pain that it actually was. They were sharp searing pains in my shoulder and excruciating cramps in my abdomen that would follow with animal-like sounds rumbling in my stomach. "Gas pain" sounded so...whatever....but, whoo...they were painful! I also had a mysterious fever that would spike up to 102 a few times over a 24-hour period accompanied with chills and uncontrollable shaking! Sunday night, it was getting so intense, I was really having to fight off fear of it being something other that normal recovery stuff. Pastor Richard and Thomas prayed stongly over my body and rebuked any scheme of the enemy that would try to enter in. They prayed and prayed in the Spirit boldly and confidently and sure enough, the fever broke an hour later and never came back.
That last night at the hospital (Sunday) I slept wonderfully. Ella nursed every 2-3 hours so I was only awake twice for her feedings.

Thank you all so much for your love and support! We feel blessed to have such amazing friends and family that love us and are always available for us.

PS-I'm so excited for my sweet friends that will be holding their bundles of joy in the next couple weeks!! Jennifer, Katy, Brooke...you sweet girls are going to be such amazing Mamas...again! :)