Introducing Baby J

After 9 long hard months and 24 hours of rough labor (which almost turned into a C-section), Baby J has arrived safe and sound. She was born May 26th at 8pm. She is a big girl weighing in at 9 lbs 7 ounces. I have no idea how a baby that big ever fit inside me. I weighed 110 lbs before I got pregnant, but gained 55 lbs from start to finish.

She is called "Baby" by the family so far and the kids are in love. Though I am not sure that she likes them yet. She gets upset by all of the touching and kissing. It is a bit overwhelming and T and Fi are not as gentle as they should be, but they are trying their best.

Now we are trying to recover and adjust and boy is it hard.

Newborns are not very pretty looking and she was a little beat up poor thing. She came out purple because the cord was around her neck. The midwife got her out in time and they pinked her up pretty quickly.

Some thoughts on pregnancy:

This is me right before giving birth. 40 weeks and 3 days. So far both my babies have been late. I know that this is an awful thing to say, but I hated being pregnant. I loved my baby and would suffer all for her, but pregnancy and birth has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

I did want to have a second biological birth and that is why we got pregnant with Baby J. My husband didn't really care about having any more bio kids and truthfully if we had had the money to adopt again we probably would have done that first. I did want to do this one last time. I hoped and prayed that it would be better than my first pregnancy with T.

It was a thousand times worse.

I was sick all nine months all of the time. It was so bad in the beginning that I couldn't even take care of the two kids that I had. Other people have had worse pregnancies than me (much worse), but I have realized that I just don't have the grace for it.

This pregnancy has made me realize that I am not meant to have children biologically. I can do it mind you, pretty well. I might be sick all of the time, but my babies are very big and healthy. Midwifes and doctors would always go on and on about how strong my babies' heart beats were and how healthy both of them were. But, I am not called to do it.

Now, flying to the other side of the world and being handed a 1 year old who screams all of the time because she doesn't know you are her new parents is no problem for me. It was emotional, hard, and I cried many times out of sadness for her pain, but I was in my element.

Adoption is what I am meant to do.

Pregnancy almost did me in.
It feels weak to admit it, but there it is. I wish I could be one of those happy moms who can pop babies out every few years, but nope not going to happen.

Not one regret though because look what I got for my 9 months of torture. I would endure anything for her, but she will more likely be my last bio kid so I will enjoy every minute of it.