Our little Clara Rose

Poor sad blog! It's been a LONG LONG time! What a year we had: moved into our first home, started a new job, got into a car accident that resulted in having to get a new van. The biggest event however was the addition of our little Clara Rose to our family!

I am not sure there has ever been a little boy more excited to become a big brother than Eprham! He would sing/talk/kiss to my baby belly all the time. He has been so sweet about helping me with his new sister. It's been amazing!

In August, we had an amazing photo session with one of my favorite photographers Amy Rhodes! I wanted to capture the last time I was doing this pregnancy thing! The results are amazing!

Clara was born on September 16 at 5:59AM. I had a doctor's appointment the day before. Dr. Kelly checked me to see if I was dilated further. I was. She said I was close to 5 cm! Then she asked if I was set on having the baby the following Monday (this was Thursday and I was scheduled to be induced on Monday) and if I was planning on having an epidural.  I told her I was really hoping to have one and no over the weekend would be much better for our family. She called over to the hospital and they had an opening for 4 AM the next morning. As I was leaving she caught me and said that there was an opening for midnight! She advice me to take the midnight one. That way I would have my nurse from the beginning of her shift and things are allot quieter at midnight!

So, I left the appointment with Ephram and got on the phone. Mom was going to have the older three kids. They would spend the night at her house and she would take them to school and pick them up from school. Allen's dad and mom would take Ephram to their house. Allen's dad ended up picking up Allen too. The new to us van had been having trouble (ugh) and when Allen went to start it to head home... it wouldn't start! UGH!!! We went 3 weeks without having two cars!

A little before midnight we arrived at the hospital. We were early and had to wait in the waiting room. This was fine by me. I was so nervous and calm all at the same time. It's never been so peaceful before. I told my nurse about my fear that the epidural would only work on one side like it did with Ephram. She assured me that the anesthesiologist that was coming was the best, and he was! He placed the epidural with no fuss and it worked great! Both sides were good and numb and it worked the whole time. The only hiccup I had was as soon as the meds started working my blood pressure dropped. My ears started ringing and I felt funny. The room was closing in. My nurse put an oxygen mask on me and things got better.

My sweet nurse came and checked on me every hour. She would help me to roll to the other side and bring me ice and water. At about 5:30 she asked how I was feeling. I told her I was feeling allot of pressure. She got the doctor of call and an intern. The intern was assisting. The nursery nurse came in too. They got me all set up and two pushes latter here was Clara. She swallowed some gunk on the way out. They handed her to me, but she was having a little trouble so the nurse took her and got her cleaned up and breathing. She had a lot of stuff in her throat. Then they handed her back to me.

Little girl still didn't have a name.... We just couldn't come up with one we liked.  Honestly, Beka had been campaigning for the name Clara for months. She would draw family pictures with everyone's name on it including the new baby. They were taped all over the house!

I finally told Allen that I thought we knew that the baby's name was going to be Clara we just didn't want to admit that the 6 year old had picked the name. Just before we checked out of the hospital we finally settled on the name of Clara Rose Leavitt.

Clara's big brothers and sisters came and brought their grandparents to meet her for the first time!

 Clara is the sweetest baby! What a welcome addition to our family!