28 on the 28th

Happy Birthday, Wes! I believe you will remember this one. Of course it's pretty cool that you are turning 28 on September 28th, but I think what you will remember is that you slept in the hospital and counted down the hours until we could take our daughter home with us. We are praying that Reese's last dose of antibiotics will be Thursday, and then off we go! I can't describe how excited I am to take Reese home and mess with her without worrying about pulling off a wire.

Wes, you are incredible. I knew you would be an amazing father, but getting to watch you these past 10 days has been so encouraging and challenging to me. The way you love your daughter and want to protect her makes my eyes water. I could watch you stare at her and laugh when she makes a funny face or smile when she is just sleeping forever. When I asked you what you wanted to do today to make it a memorable birthday, you said you just wanted it to be a peaceful day. Perspective has changed. Our relationship with Christ and the love of family He shares with us are infinitely more important than anything else. I love you so much and wish I could do more for you on your special day than just hang a banner in the hospital room. I'm just glad I did your birthday shopping before Miss Reese was born.

Thank you for loving your two girls so well. We are so blessed.

The love of a brand new daddy.

I love you so much that I searched through all of the labor shots and actually posted two of me.

That hair that I wanted to look so cute...let's just say that I lost my pony tail holder somewhere around 7 cm.
A very proud father...and two happy grandfathers in the background.
Our newly expanded family.
Yes, Wes is much better at changing diapers than me. Maybe it's because he's not scared of pulling off any cords.
Devotion.
Joy.
Contentment.
Love.

Happy Birthday, Wes. We love you so much.

--Your TWO girls, Kate and Reese

Sweet Baby Reese

She's here! And I don't think I can even begin to tell you how beautiful she is. Reese Robinson Walker arrived at 4:26 p.m. on Saturday, September 18th weighing in at 8 pounds and is a whopping 20 1/2 inches long.

I'll start at the beginning...

I decided to celebrate not going into labor on my due date by going to a high school football game on Friday night. We walked a lot, and I went to sleep very tired. Wes, on the other hand, didn't fall asleep until 3:30 in the morning. Oops. When I woke up at 6:03 to what felt like a much different contraction than any other I had experienced, I stood up and realized my water had just broken. I tried to let Wes sleep a bit more, but by 6:28, three contractions had gone by, and I was thinking we needed to get this show on the road. By 7:30, my contractions had been 3-5 minutes apart for quite a while, and we made the move to the hospital. I was admitted at 4 cm and progressed to 8 cm in a few short hours. With Wes, my doula, and dearest friend Lauren (who also happens to be a labor and delivery nurse here), we were on track to having a very short natural labor. Ha. I stayed in transition (8-10 cm) for over four and a half hours, experienced an 8 minute contraction, and finally got to a 10 a little after 4:00 p.m. After 20 minutes of pushing, God helped me deliver Reese into this world. And yes, I did it without any medical interventions. What an answered prayer. I am not exactly sure why I wanted to do this naturally, but I did it...and it was the most painful experience of my life.

It was the most painful experience of my life until we realized that Reese had a few complications. Perspective totally shifted. Very quickly. I have forgotten the pains of childbirth, and I now just long for our baby girl to be well. I won't go into all the little details, and trust me, there are lots of little details, but Reese has Group B Strep. I tested negative for it at 36 weeks pregnant, so I didn't receive any of the antibiotics during labor. Nonetheless, Reese is looking and appears to be feeling much better than she did on Saturday and Sunday. As of now, without further complications, we are looking at another 10 or so days here in the hospital while Reese receives antibiotics, recovers from this nasty infection, and stays under constant watch and care in the Intensive Care Nursery.

We are praising God for answering so many specific prayers in the way we wanted them to be answered. Reese has been off oxygen since Sunday, and her coloring is just beautiful now. Recent test results are coming back in favor of a healthy recovery, and we feel the hand of God constantly. We would like to ask for your prayers, however, for Reese to continue this road. She has had a few setbacks, and we pray for no more of these. Pray for all current and future test results to be good, pray for her ability and desire to breast feed alone, and pray for a procedure that will be done tomorrow morning. I trust God to give the doctors and nurses the wisdom and discernment throughout this whole process, but it can't hurt to pray for them either.

We have been showered with love and prayers from so many, and we appreciate all of the phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. Keep it up, please. We are encouraged and believe that Reese will be perfectly healthy in a matter of another week or so. Until then, we wait with faith here at the hospital.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures of our precious daughter. Like I said before, she is beautiful.

Better Late than Never

So I totally missed the window of opportunity to get maternity photos taken at the cute belly stage, but my teacher friend Kate came over to drop off a gift the other day with camera in hand and insisted I take a few. And oh how glad I am that I did. No full blown photo shoot was done, but I'm loving these few pictures and will definitely cherish them. Thanks, Kate.

In other news, my due date is tomorrow. Come on, B-Dubette!!

Maybe the next post will be a picture of her. Maybe.

For Mom

Mom, I don't know why, but I can't email you pictures. These may be the last weekly pregnant photos...or I may have two more weeks' worth. Who knows at this point, but one thing I do know is that I'm content being pregnant right now. The weather is cooler, football has started, and I know B-Dubette's birthday has to be soon. So, mom...here are my 39 week pictures. Yes, the baby and I are MUCH bigger.

And just for kicks because he doesn't get a lot of portraits taken these days...

La Di Da

Oh, it was another wonderful weekend here in the Walker home. With the inability to plan anything more than a stroll downtown, we stuck close to home and had a fabulous time. We started Friday off with a trip to the square for our town's First Friday celebration. It was PACKED, and Emmett got a ton of attention as usual. Wes had a frozen lemonade, and I got some Tequila Lime Chicken Nachos which were sooo good. We enjoyed some good music, friends, and lots of people watching. Saturday morning we headed back to the square for the Farmers Market, and I of course waited the 45 minutes for a dark chocolate crepe. Yummmm. We got our red and white on and headed to Fayetteville that afternoon for the first Razorback game of the season! I listened to the game on the radio while Wes and his brother took our niece and nephew to the game...I figured it wouldn't be the best idea to try a 4+ hour outing like that if we weren't playing a team I really wanted to see. Plus, I got to hang out with my amazing sister-in-law's for the evening. Lots of great conversation and interesting attempts at potty training the young-un's. Sunday, I got to visit one of B-Dubette's BFF's who was born that morning to an incredibly strong mama. Timmy is the sweetest, cutest little boy, and I was just in awe holding him thinking that a baby that size is inside me right now. What?! We hung out with some great friends that night eating lots of pizza and enjoying the incredible breeze. Okay, you are bored by now, but the most wonderful part of the entire weekend was yesterday morning's walk with Wes and Emmett. We spent about an hour and a half walking through the museum trail, to the square, around to Orchards Park, and back home. Ahhhh...

Well, you are definitely done reading by now. Here are a few pictures of our life these days. La Di Da...life is good. We are so thankful for the incredible blessings God has given us. We are so unworthy, and it's just so cool to continually be reminded of how much God loves us.

38 weeks...I'm trying to really document these last few weeks because this baby is growing tremendously right now!

Me and my nachos.

A wonderful night downtown.

Emmett drying off after his back end fell into the fountain. Oops.

Just Because

Just because I have time, I thought I would ramble a little this morning. Feel free to skip to the pictures if you are in a rush. I'll just be giving baby updates and fun completely unnecessary facts.

I'm currently sitting here in the living room listening to Emmett pant loudly over in his cool tiled corner by the door. He got a little worn out on our 3 mile walk this morning. Speaking of walks, I may need to hold off for a few days. I got notice that my dad will be in California next Tuesday through Saturday for work, so I'm supposed to halt B-Dubette's arrival during that time. Okay, sure. I highly doubt she is coming next week, and in fact I am guessing she comes either a day or two before the actual due date (the 17th) or a few days after it. Regardless, I still have this innate desire to deliver our baby any day now, but I don't want my dad to miss it. I'm still feeling pretty comfortable except for the hand and feet swelling at night and occasional middle of the night wake-ups. It makes it a lot easier that I'm not working every day. I'm making progress, and even though I never thought I would blog about it, I'm 1.5 cm dilated and 60% effaced. I figure that those of you reading are people who have either had children or are in the "I have friends who are pregnant and tell me all about it" stage. You can take it, right? B-Dub is definitely in position to arrive, but she could easily stay there for a while.

September is going to be one crazy fun month. One baby in the family was born yesterday on the 1st, and by the pictures, he is absolutely adorable. Welcome, baby Samuel! I can't wait to meet you. Two great friends are due this weekend, and I'm just hoping and praying that Timmy and Baby Kirby come soon! It's going to be so fun to go through this parenting thing with you. And of course one of my BEST friends is having twin boys next Friday in Alabama...I wish more than anything I could be there to welcome them into this world! B-Dubette will make her grand appearance sometime in the next few weeks, and then Wes turns 28 on the 28th! Oooh, I just realized that fun tidbit....28 on the 28th! I may need to do something with that. There may be some more September birthdays if a couple of babies decide to come early, but I haven't even mentioned football season and the weather changing. Those are my usual favorite things about September. This year will be just a bit different.

Please join us in praying for all these babies who are about to arrive. We covet all prayers and just ask for health for all moms and babies, smooth labors and deliveries, and that joy will fill all hearts involved. I'll leave you with a belly picture I took the other day to send to my San Franciscan brother and a couple of other recent random photos.

Here's pregnant Kate at a little over 37 1/2 weeks. A MAJOR difference in just a week.

Some of the closet dividers I made the other day...I copied the idea from my twin mama friend.

And Emmett. He won't be the star of too many upcoming pictures, so I feel like I need to include one now. This was right after Wes brushed out his coat and gave him a semi-lion look.