Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Baby Kaden

I hope all of you had a blessed Christmas and spent lots of time loving on your family and friends. Looking back on this past year, it's so hard not to be thankful for the multitude of ways God has blessed us. There have surely been hard times and lots of sadness, but through it all, God has been so faithful and loved us still. I'm so blessed to have you all in my life and to have such amazing clients.

As many of you know, I was scheduled to have a c-section on December 20 because the baby has been breech this whole time, but that didn't happen. When I arrived at the hospital before the break of day, they put me on some monitors to watch the baby's heart rate, and the nurse said, "Oh yeah, this baby is definitely breech." They had to put the heart monitors extremely high on my belly because of his breech position. They were a little tight, and Kaden obviously didn't appreciate that, so he started jumping around. I was watching a movie to distract myself from the needles in my future, so I didn't pay much attention to the movements. A resident came in to do one last ultrasound to verify Kaden's position shortly before I was supposed to have my epidural. And much to our utter surprise, at the very last minute, he flipped! this whole time he was heads up, and he turned heads down right before he was supposed to be born!

I've gotten a lot of mixed reactions when I've recounted this story. Some people say something like, "Praise the Lord for this miracle," or "that's awesome that you'll be able to have him naturally." In my heart, though, I was kinda disappointed because the prospect of having a baby and not having labor seemed pretty enticing. Especially since we'd be able to have a baby sooner :).

So we talked and talked and talked.... and prayed and prayed and prayed....

And then we decided not to do the c-section that day because we couldn't ignore what had just happened. I mean, what are the odds that he'd be breech the ENTIRE time and then flip into perfect birthing position right before the c-section? The nurses said they had never seen that happen before with such timing. I was convinced it was an act of God.

A few days later, I was not even close to going into labor, and my dr. decided to do some testing because my baby was getting pretty big. He wanted to make sure that the baby would have a chance to be born naturally if I was going to wait.... because I am kinda small and he was measuring into the 9.5 pound range. After lots of scans and tests and ultrasounds, my dr. called me and said, "He's not gonna fit. He's not gonna fit in a MAJOR way. I'll see you on Friday for your c-section."

So at 5:30 in the morning on December 26, Jon and I headed to the hospital for my second scheduled c-section. By the grace of God, I had an amazing peace that morning and the prep went quickly and almost painlessly. My dr. began the surgery at 7:30am and at 7:44am, our beautiful baby boy, Kaden, was born! He was about 7 and a half pounds... a far cry from the chunker the ultrasound and tests had predicted ;). Incredible doesn't even come close to describing it. Life really is a miracle and I'm so blessed to have been able to have a part in such a beautiful process.

And now for just a few quick pics of that first day that Jon and I shot (mostly all by Jon... I was still a little loopy on pain medication :) ).

Me with my baby right shortly after surgery


My dad as grandpa for the first time


uncle josh


uncle tyler


Jon's dad with his new grandbaby


My Jon and Kaden. Jon took COMPLETELY amazing care of me while I was in the hospital and he was by my side pretty much 24/7... calming my worries and keeping me sane. He changed every single one of those diapers for me, and didn't complain about it once. What a natural. He's a pretty amazing daddy already :)
I love these two guys.