And Then There Were Two....(Girls, that is)

Cora Jeanne

October 29, 2010

6 lbs. 7 oz.

19 inches 

We have one dainty and petite and oh, so very cute little baby.  Her 10 fingers are thin and long and her two feet are tiny...no Flintstones feet like her big brother Kai.  Her cry is decidedly feminine (unlike Drew's wail that could peel paint). She has two big blue eyes, like Owen.  Her disposition is kind (like her Daddy).  

All five of us are totally and completely smitten.


Thankfully, she looks good in pink because she has a lot of it!  Actually, she looks good in everything, from her birthday suit to her oldest brother's white sleeper (which is surprisingly still white and very cozy).  I love to look down at her during a night feeding, when the house is quiet, and see her in that white sleeper. 

I remember my three precious little baby boys that wore it before her and how they are big boys sleeping in their big boy beds down the hall...with dirt under their raggedy fingernails and Lego's hidden in their pillowcases.  So I hold her tightly and for just a minute longer because soon the white sleeper will no longer fit and I'll have no more babies to put in it and she'll be sleeping down the hall (or in our closet) with chipped pink fingernail polish on her fingers and Polly Pockets in her pillowcase.

She has one given name, but has several others to try out.  Kai calls her "baby sister" (with a lisp) and "nice baby."  Owen calls her Cora-ster (its an Owen thing) and Drew calls her "Miss Cora."  Jay calls her "Sweetie."

I am just happy to call her mine.

Our one little girl.

It wasn't easy bringing her into this world.  From the moment we found out we were having another child to add to our brood of three, we were nervous.  My doctor was nervous, too, and didn't know what to do with my "complicated, distorted anatomy." So off I went to some doctors who did.  Specialists.  A team of high-risk doctors that are accustomed to navigating around innards such as mine.  They called me several different names, "one-of-a-kind" and "unique," in an effort to not make me feel like such a freak show.  But, alas, no one wants to be "special" when it comes to your organs.

I just wanted one word to describe me:  normal.  Since I've never been completely that, I guess my insides decided to follow suit.

They didn't use words like "epidural" and "dilate" and "just one more push" to describe the upcoming birth of our daughter.  My doctors said scary doctor words like hysterectomy, bladder damage, catheter and severe adhesions.  

And then there were the scarier, life-threatening words like placenta accretia and uterine rupture.  All things that were very real to my birth.  (NOT the birth plan I had in mind!)  With things like that swimming around in my head I decided the only thing to do was trust in the life-savers that were my doctors.


And pray.  Fervent, honest, pleading prayers.

I could handle the pain, the scars and the recovery.  I just wanted a healthy baby and a healthy me.

And I was blessed with that.  One sweet baby girl and one thankful Mama.

And then there were two...

{All photos by my friend Jen Espanet.}