Meeting Mary

My family drove up to meet Mary on Tuesday, May 22. They arrived in the evening and we had dinner together at our house. Not surprisingly, I didn't carry my camera around for most of the visit, so almost all of these pictures are from Joshua, Heather, and Michelle.

Everyone was excited to get a turn holding her, and she was pretty happy to get passed around to everyone.

The Nickells and Trevinos were staying at an AirBNB that was close to our house while Mom and Dad stayed with us. We spent a lot of time at the other house because it was considerably larger than ours, but there were also a few outings around town that different groups of people enjoyed. Most of the time Mary and I stayed around the house with whichever people hadn't gone out, but one of the things we all did was enjoy lunch at Tacovore. It was Mary's first actually outing, not counting leaving the hospital or visiting the pediatrician.

The cousins brought Mary a present: a onesie that matched their shirts. Now there are seven cousins in the bunch.

Michelle and I with our babies. Elias and Mary have birthdays that are one day apart. Elias was born on May 11 last year and Mary was born on May 10 this year.

Thursday everyone came back to our house for a Mediterranean barbecue in the backyard. Joshua and Natalie grilled lamb while Mom, Heather, and Michelle made rice, veggies, and other tasty sides.

We finished the evening off with brownies celebrating that Mary was two weeks old.

Of course, we had time for playing games and holding the baby. We also spent a lot of time visiting and eating good food. One thing I particularly enjoyed was talking about birth stories together.

I made sure to get pictures of Mom, Heather, and Michelle with the blankets that each of them made for Mary.

Saturday morning, after a few last snuggles with baby Mary, everyone piled in the van and returned to California. It was fun to see all of them and introduce Mary; we appreciated that they all drove up to see us and the help with cooking and doing chores around the house.

Baby Feet

Kissing Face

Mary continues to delight us with her adorable faces.

This is one of our favorite faces; Mary makes it all the time right now.

Baby Bump

Joshua and I had fun taking pictures of my growing belly every week during pregnancy.

Welcome Mary Sophia

 On Wednesday, May 9, I woke up around 1:20am having strong contractions about 8 minutes apart. This continued throughout the night, and by morning we were confident that this was no false alarm but the actual start of labor. It was quite exciting to know that soon we would meet our baby. However, as the day progressed, the contractions didn't change much. The midwife thought this was probably because the baby wasn't in an ideal position. We tried different things to help the baby into a better position, but after 40 hours of labor and 4 1/2 hours of pushing, we ended up having a C-section. Needless to say, we were exhausted, but happy to finally meet our little girl. Mary Sophia was born at 5:51pm on Thursday, May 10. She weighed 7lb, 6oz, was 21in long, and was absolutely beautiful. Although labor and delivery didn't go as we hoped, the end result of a healthy baby and mom was exactly what we wanted and we greatly appreciated the support of our midwives throughout the process.

We spent the next few days recovering in the mom and baby section of the hospital under the care of wonderful nurses.

This picture didn't turn out, but I couldn't resist including it because Mindy and Nikki were our two favorite nurses. Mindy was the afternoon and evening nurse both Thursday and Friday and Nikki was the night nurse both days. Although all the nurses were great, they stood out as particularly good and we really liked both of them.

We returned home on Saturday. It was strange to leave the hospital and be out in the world again, but we were glad to be home. Dave and Gayle meet Mary on Thursday night at the hospital, but then they went over to the coast for a few days to take care of some things while we were in the hospital. They returned to Eugene Saturday night. They spent the next week coming by for most of the day and helping us with household chores and holding the baby.

My first Mother's Day card from Joshua and Mary with the flowers and card from Dave and Gayle to celebrate Mary's birth and Mother's Day.

Dave prepared killer dinners every night full of protein and plenty of vegetables; everything was delicious.

Mary also got beautiful flowers from Jim and Jayne and a couple plants from the neighbor.

Mary with Grandma and the quilt she made.

Mary is a sweet, generally content baby. She has the cutest facial expressions and recently began pursing her lips a lot. We are delighted to welcome her to our family and so glad she is finally here.

Pregnancy Photographs

Sarah and I have been enjoying beautiful spring days recently. This week, we took advantage of one such day by driving to Hendricks Park for a photo shoot. In addition to a pleasant afternoon spent walking around enjoying the flowers together, we took some good pictures of Sarah. These are some of my favorites.