Baby Bucket

Bucket has arrived~she's almost two weeks old, actually.

Her birth was everything I prayed for, praise God! I started having contractions Thursday night so we went to our good friends the Mom-a-lot's house since they were planning on watching our other children. We decided to stay the night and I slept until about 2am when I was having a lot of back pain. I realized baby was sunny side up so I got on my hands and knees for a while and I can't be sure but I swear I felt her turn around. I went back to bed. At 4:30 I couldn't sleep anymore. I woke dad up and told him it was time to go. He woke Guys because we decided she was going to come with us. We woke Mom-a-lot and let her know we were leaving. We got to the hospital at 5:15am and to my glad surprise I was 8 cm. With each contraction the baby's heart rate dropped and the nurse was nervous and kept messing with me but my midwife was totally calm and kept her in line. The Dr. on duty wanted to put in a pressure monitor but my midwife kept delaying, saying we were going to push any minute. She rushed me along a bit, to keep the Dr. at bay, so I started pushing before I was ready. It was totally awesome though, because it worked and Bucket was born just a few minutes later. 6:34 am, just the right amount of time to be at the hospital. I got to hold her immediately and when they tried to take her the midwife whispered for me to start nursing her. I got to hold her for about an hour when they insisted they had to take her to the nursery.

Dad and Guys went with, and with a little patience and a tiny bit of arguing, the found a nurse that would bring her back and do all of the checking and stuff in the room with me. After that, the staff was great, they didn't even bat an eye when we said no vaccines. They let Guys give Bucket her first bath, what a special experience to have her there for the birth of her sister!

Dad, Guys, and I spent the day taking turns holding baby...

...and finishing up our traditional gift from the new baby to her brothers and sisters.

Dad brought the kids to see their new baby sister.

They were so excited, each taking two turns of holding her and looking at her toes and belly and hair and ears and every little new part they could uncover!

They were very sad to leave, and I really hate that they couldn't stay!  Luckily we got to go home the next morning.  Everyone is so excited and blessed to have our newest family member finally here with us!