The early weeks

As you can imagine, I haven't had a whole lot of time these past few weeks to blog. But, it's Saturday morning, James is holding the baby, the kids are watching Dora....so I have a few moments to myself....incredibly.

First off, I wanted to post to extend my condolences to the Allen family. Ronalee (who you might notice has left comments here as of late) is a good friend of my moms. Tragically, she was killed in a car accident yesterday. Her soon to be adopted baby boy was with her and he is apparently at McMaster right now; I don't know what his status is, but I'm sure he needs your prayers. Ronalee leaves a husband and I think 4 other children; one grown daughter and others younger. They were well known at Fair Havens. Please pray for this family.

I'm going to tentatively say that my family is finally well.....knock on wood....First I continued to fight off a wicked cold that I had before the baby was born. That took a good week and a half after Afton came. Then last weekend, about 3am Saturday morning, Verity woke me up by throwing up all over her bed. This continued for the next 12 hours. When she started with a fever, I had James take her to Mac. 6 hours later, they were home with the diagnosis of a stomach virus. Brilliant. We had been planning her birthday party for that day--she turned 3 on the 20th, and we were supposed to be going to Barrie on Sunday for a family shindig. Instead, I sent the older two to my parents, hoping to shield them from the germies....and give us a break. With a tiny baby who, as my babies tend to be, doesn't sleep for long periods and doesn't care to sit by herself, tending to a vomiting toddler was tricky. I couldn't sit in Verity's room to watch over her with the baby in arms, because then I couldn't jump up and help Verity when the next wave hit. So it took both James and I...which was leaving the older two roaming the house stealing food from the pantry. (Ok, that's just Jairus). (Who does that even when his parents aren't preoccupied with his sisters).

I had hoped that the virus would be a 24 hour thing, but instead it just kept progressing through phases....I won't detail those. But most disturbing was just how much pain she was in. At times she was rolling around on her bed, wailing about her painful tummy. Finally, on Tuesday morning, after a couple hours of her wails I decided to take her back to the doctor. As my family doctor didn't have any openings for a week and a half, I took her to a local walk in clinic. Even though the vomiting had pretty much stopped, what do you suppose she did all over me while we were in the waiting room? Of course, because....that's what kind of week I was having.

The doctor dismissed us with the same diagnosis. I asked him how long it should be lasting and he said 36 hours. I leveled a look at him and said it had now been 3 days. He didn't have any good answer for that.

Meanwhile, I had dress rehearsal on Monday night, a concert on Wednesday night and tonight is our final concert. I would have been somewhat stressed about that anyway, never mind doing it with a newborn in tow and a sick girlie at home. It was difficult to get my mind on my job, which is my excuse for why I led the choir off the stage on Wednesday, completely forgetting to sing the last song, an acapella canon. My kids (choir kids, that is) were absolutely gleeful to catch Mrs. Kent in a huge blunder. Oh well, I have tonight to make up for it.

I prayed all week that none of the rest of us would get this, but internet searches on gastroenteritis and it's highly contagious status were not giving me much hope. Sure enough, on Thursday afternoon, Jairus refused his lunch and went to bed instead, crying and pointing to his tummy. I sat on his bed and cried with him. Got him a gravol and he went off to sleep.

And then that evening, a sense of dread began in my gut when the baby seemed a little warm. Her diapers started looking a little....odd (I'll spare you any further details). I took her temperature and it was a little high. We went to bed and I woke around 3 to change and feed her...and her temperature was higher, nearly 101F. I called the midwife in a mild panic and she told us to take off a layer and get her some tylenol. We did both and I was relieved to see the temp come down....but why was it up in the first place? She couldn't possibly have the virus too....NOOO!!

The entire next day I took her temps hourly, logged every feed and detailed every diaper change. Perhaps I was being a little overly paranoid, but after the week I'd put in.....and with her only being 3 weeks old....sigh.

But today seems better. Her temps have stayed down without Tylenol since early evening last night, and she's not complaining as much. Jairus also perked up without any further signs of virus. I'm SO thankful. Yesterday was Verity's first normal day, with only one or two wails. Now I just have to remember to sing that dang canon tonight and I will be on top of the world!!

Here's another picture of my newest girlie....taken yesterday when she was not feeling so well....I think it shows!

Afton Leah Kent

Ok, so two days past due is acceptable....

Little girl was born at 8:19pm last night. I woke up about 4:30am with contractions about 10 minutes apart, but not very long. To my disappointment, by the time my midwives arrived, around 10am, things had slowed down even more then that. I spent most of the day walking....inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, trying to get them going strong (when else do we try to bring on pain...?).

I think it was some homeopathics that finally did the trick---don't ask me what they were, all I knew was that when the midwife offered me something that could possibly start labour strongly, I jumped at it...and they worked. Meanwhile, I got both doses of the antibiotic in that I needed, being Group B Strep positive. I wondered if perhaps subconciously I caused things to go slowly until that was done...

Once things picked up, it was rip roaring to the end though. I took those homeopathics around 5 I think, finished the antibiotics at 7 and less then an hour and a half later, Afton Leah made her appearance. The midwife gathered her up in the weigh sling and asked us to guess...we were all in the 7 pound range.....(buzzer sound) All wrong! She beat out Honour by one ounce--8 pounds, 6 ounces, 21.5 inches long, which makes her my biggest baby. Jairus was the same length, but only 6 pounds, 7.5 ounces. I was pretty surprised. She's doing very well and even gave us a nice block of sleep last night. As you can see, Jairus, Honour and Verity are thrilled...

By the time she was born, we had James, my parents, two midwives, three kids, 4 sisters, one boyfriend and a partridge in a pear tree in the house.

I'm so thankful that it's all done, thankful to God for the strength get through yesterday, thankful to my husband, who as usual was a wonderful support through it all, thankful to my amazing midwives who did a fantastic job and thankful to my mom for her presence and comfort through the hardest parts. Thank you!

Fifth Babies have no business being overdue.

Need I say more?

Photo Shoot

I was reading over my last few posts and thought...'Man am I a complainer!!'.

So for a change, here's something slightly more interesting....pictures of a nine month pregnant lady. (!!!)

Our good friend Dave from church offered to do a 'belly shoot'. Never fear, no actual pics of my belly (scary prospect), but lots of me and my fam. Here's a few of the favourites (out of nearly 150 shots!)