AND THEN THERE WAS TEN!

Sunday, December 28th I woke up at 4:00AM with a sore throat and pounding sinuses.  As I got up to check my temperature my water broke and contractions began.   I immediately woke up Jeff.  We both were too excited to go back to sleep.  I took a shower and then we watched a movie.  At 8:00 we tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t.  We got up as the kids woke up.  Micah was the first to get up and was super excited when I told him his brother or sister would be born that day.  He immediately wanted to wake everyone else up and herald the news.  Jeff began to set up his medical table and I set out the things clothes and blankets needed for baby’s arrival. We were hopeful that little #8 would be born soon.  Instead, it proved to be a typical McKissick labor as I labored ALL DAY LONG.

 Jeff's medical table

Baby things

My "throne"

At NOON I was dilated 3cm and having manageable contractions every 20-40 minutes apart.  By evening my contraction pattern was unfortunately the same.

We watched movies….and waited for contractions to pick up.

We played lots of games…and waited for contractions to pick up.

We ate dinner and put the kids to bed…and waited for contractions to pick up.

But they ever did.

AT MIDNIGHT I was only dilated to a 4! 

Jeff started Pitocin. 

 MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2015

1:00AM the contractions were finally picking up and we turned the Pitocin off.

2:00AM with intense contractions, I began to have hope that we would see our baby soon.

At 3:00AM we were finally able to meet our sweet precious baby….

IT’S A GIRL!

IT’S A CLAIRE JOY!

At 4:00AM we woke the kids to introduce them to Claire.  

 Claire was awake and very alert her first couple hours, taking everything in.  She nursed well, then found her fingers and went to sleep. 

 After the sun came up and we had some sleep the kids all took turn holding her and we introduced her to both sets of grandparents.

Getting a weight and length on Claire.

6lbs, 8oz

19in

Claire's first day was a big day.  She met and was passed around to all her siblings.  

She met and was passed around to all her grandparents.

She joined us for donut Monday. 

 and our Monday pizza dinner tradition

 And we celebrated her birth day.  Tyler made brownies for Claire with her name in marshmallows.  We all sang happy birth day to her.

CHRISTMAS #2 with GRANDPA and GRANDMA

On the 26th we celebrated Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Steve and Aunt Margret and (cousin) Zuleyka.

We opened more gifts, ate a great lasagna dinner and played games.

CHRISTMAS #1 with OPA and OMA

Jeff: “Most of the time it doesn’t feel like we have a lot of kids but every time I see our stockings I think wow, we do have a bunch of kids.”

Christmas Eve day my family came from Abilene.  We went to a Christmas Eve service together and then came home and opened stockings.  We ate hamburgers and played games.  We watched The Nativity Story and toasted cider at midnight. 

Christmas morning Tyler and Micah made us sausage and chocolate chip crepes with a cream cheese filling and fruit on top.

We opened under the tree gifts.

We sang Christmas carols and we read the Christmas story from Bible.

We had a big lunch of ham and lots of sides and we finished our advent reading.

We had (and have had) lots of desserts – candies, iced cookies, pies, candy canes, and cakes.

We played games, did puzzles, built new Lego sets, and some of us went to see the movie Unbroken that night. 

 And we waited for a baby to be born…I was 39 weeks on December 25th...but we will hae to wait some more...