Darcy's Birth

First off, some pictures from the day before she was born - me at my biggest! Valentines Day:

Now, the story of her birth:

We were finishing dinner at 8pm when I felt a cramp and then another one. By 8:30pm, Abigail settled down to watch a Star Wars movie and I said to Jake "Can you help me knock out this dishwasher, in case this is really it?" Everybody is still laughing that I cared about the dinner dishes that night. It very quickly ramped up and I was nervous to waste time given (1) my history of fast labours and (2) my anxiety surrounding the birth this time, post-Chloe.

By 9:15pm, we had dropped Abigail and Bryony off to spend the night at Jenn and Joe's. Abigail was anxious and worried about me but I reminded her that everything was OK, and that it was going exactly how we had planned for, it's just that she was thrown off with all the rushing around I think. By 9:30pm I was telling Jake to drive faster down Shea Blvd because I knew this was it. I called Dr. Harris who said she would call and warn them I was coming, and that she'd meet us there.

In true Madonna baby fashion, by 11:05pm our beautiful shining rainbow was born. She gave us some scares in the early hours with some difficulty breathing and my anxiety and panic soared. But by morning, we were given the all-clear that our rainbow was perfectly healthy. The relief was incredible. Welcome to our family baby Darcy - how loved you are already!

first picture - just minutes after birth

boy, were these guys excited to meet baby!

time to take her home!

Darcy is the only one of her grandchildren that Nanna did not personally welcome to the family by being at the birth. So, she quickly gathered her friends - a group known now as The Golden Girls - and they had champagne to toast and celebrate Miss Darcy :)

Rainbow Nursery

We spent Superbowl Sunday putting together a rainbow-themed nursery for Mini-Madonna #4 :)

frames above our bed waiting for one final name

Big Sibling Class

At the end of January, Bryony took the same Big Sibling Class at the hospital that Abigail had taken in 2011 :) She was more than ready to become a Big Sister herself - the excitement is high! Here's a fun story I posted on Facebook at the time:

Bryony keeps wanting to play the game "pretend our baby popped out". It's an easy game for me, I lay on the couch while she is the doctor. First she writes stuff on a notepad, like, "baby" and "doktr Bryony", and "54367". Then she usually says "OK, lay here, I'll call baby support" (picks up play phone and says "hello, baby support? I have a lady here who's having her baby"). Then she rubs my bump a few times with her hand and says "OK, don't worry, this won't hurt, it might be a little bit scary, but it's not real scary, it's more just like Halloween". Then I close my eyes and with some kind of painless magic my plastic baby pops out and she swaddles it. Then she says "Congratulations, it's a girl, she's healthy and perfect, what do you want to name her?" 

It's all so cute. I think she's ready for this to go down in her real life.

Life at Home

January was mostly filled with getting ready for Mini-Madonna #4 :)

Abigail moved downstairs to make room for a nursery

mumma's turkey spinach lasagne

Girl Scout cookie season

gestational diabetes dinner for mumma

sticking her tongue out at us already