Next time you come to the Springs to visit us, we will probably take you to Serenity Springs Wildlife Center. It’s pretty much the coolest place we’ve visited since we’ve lived here. Forty minutes to the east of Colorado Springs, Serenity Springs is a sort of retirement home and rescue center for ‘non-domestic felines’ and is home to over 120 exotic large cats. For $10 you can tour their property and meet about 40 of the residents almost face to face. Seriously, you’re only 2-3 feet away from these amazing animals and it is just incredible to learn each cat’s story and to see the cats interact with the staff. We took my dad and his wife Mary there on their trip last weekend to see us and meet Clara and we all had a great time.

The coolest part was a rare opportunity that Geneva had to get to pet, hold and get her picture taken with a 6 week old baby tiger!! Unfortunately the only picture we have of that is not digital, so you will have to wait to see it until we get a scanner. It was a pretty incredible experience for her for sure – the tiger was crying and crying and clawing and crawling everywhere and Geneva was so brave!!

Here are some other highlights of our trip to Serenity Springs:

We dedicated our Clara to the Lord at our church last Sunday.

It was a very special time, and we were so grateful that my dad and Mary could be here to join with us. Our pastor exhorted us that it was much more than dedicating our baby to our God, but truly a time to dedicate our family and parenting to Him and to ask this body of believers to join with us in raising our children in love and truth and righteousness and godly wisdom. We are so thankful to be under such godly authority, and so thankful to be part of a body of believers who welcome godly accountability and who have a passion to see all of our children come to know Jesus the Messiah and grow in Him.

Geneva started taking ballet lessons this week!!

It’s through a local Christian dance studio and we’ve been really pleased with them so far. There are many places for a 3.5 year old to take ballet, one even within walking distance from our house, but we were shocked at how varied the approaches could be! Ballet is an extremely disciplined art, so I guess that explains why it is normal to find 75 minute long classes for 3 year olds that give you demerits if you are ever out of dress code, or if your hair is not properly secured in a bun with a ‘bun kit.’ But for an introduction to dancing, I wanted to give my active child something a little more…fun? Jillian’s School of Dance offers that fun, and that’s why we’re there. Plus it is a very reasonable $8 a class, which makes the October-May commitment easier to handle.

Geneva did very well, especially for her first day. I was relieved, since we were coming into the class a few weeks behind. The instructor said that “based on how quickly she caught on, she shows lots of promise.” That’s always nice to hear. Way to go, Geneva! The studio has an ‘observation room’ with a one way window so we can watch the girls but they can’t see us. She’s one of the tallest three girls in the class of twelve, so she’s easy to spot. She’s already asked 4 times today when it was going to be Monday again so she could go to ballet. Who knows if she’ll keep it up long term, but it is a true delight to her heart right now. Can’t wait til her first recital!!

Getting to know this sweet girl has been really exciting.

She’s doing well and very healthy, in the 50th percentile for head, height, and weight for one month (Geneva was tall, large head, and average weight).  She is a sensitive baby, and if I had to guess I’m thinking she’ll be more of a home-body/less adventurous and more introverted than her sister. We’ll wait and see if that’s true…:)

If you’ve read The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer (my favorite baby book!!) Clara falls into the “touchy baby” category (well, maybe touchy mixed with some ‘textbook.’ As an aside, Geneva was an textbook/angel baby). I’ve been really thankful to have the wisdom in this book to help me understand Clara. She’s such a good baby, but I know without understanding her “way of being in the world” these first few weeks would have been much more difficult. From Baby Whisperer:

For an ultrasensitive baby like [Clara] the world is an endless array of sensory challenges. She blinks or turns her head away from bright light. She often gets fussy after a number of people have held her, or after outings. She’ll play on her own for a few minutes, but she needs reassurance that someone she knows well – mom or dad – is close by. She likes to suck a lot. At nap time and at night, [Clara] often has difficulty falling asleep. Touchy babies like her easily get off schedule, because their systems are so fragile. And extra long nap, a skipped meal, an unexpected visitor, a trip, a change in formula, any of these things can throw [Clara] for a loop. When you have a touchy baby, the quicker you learn her cues and cries, the simpler like is. These babies love structure and predictability – no hidden surprises, thank you. When she wakes up in the morning she needs immediate attention or shes starts crying. She smiles when prompted but sometimes starts to cry within minutes of smiling. She seems to often feel insecure in her own bed, (and would MUCH rather be held.) The comment that best describes [Clara] is that ‘she’s a delicate little thing.’

This pretty much sums it up. She gets overstimulated very easily, so yes, schedule is important to Clara. Falling asleep and staying asleep has been her biggest challenge, which is characteristic of a ‘touchy baby’ who, like the book says, “fusses a bit and seems to be drifting off, but then keeps waking up.” She really doesn’t cry that much, just when she’s tired, hungry, or overstimulated and esp. when she’s overtired (look out, buddy!) The hardest thing initially was that she doesn’t seem to give off “sleep cues” like most babies (rubbing eyes, turning head away from anything stimulating, yawning). She’ll just all of a sudden be overtired and start screaming like some wild cat. So we just have to watch the clock and know that if she’s been awake about an hour to an hour and a half, it’s time to preemptively strike and swaddle her up and start putting her to sleep. She is still waking up twice a night to eat, so she’s still in a bassinet in our room. Her best sleep is between 8pm and 1am (ironic that that’s just after Geneva goes to bed? haha).

Kidding aside, Geneva has adjusted amazingly well to Clara, much better than Michael or I thought possible. (Thank you to whoever prayed for that!) She loves to hold her and help us feed her or burp her and will run to give her a paci if she’s fussing. (Of course other times, she’ll just yell “MOM, you’re baby’s crying!” ha!) We also bought Geneva a changing table and accessories for her bitty baby dolls Cate and Rachel for her ‘big sister’ present from Clara, which she uses every day as she mimics me in everything I’m doing and saying to Clara. It’s really, really sweet. Geneva tells us every day “I love my baby sister.” As do we all, Geneva, as do we all. <3

You are miraculously tied to the terrain in which you grow up, and Michael and I will always love and crave gigantic bright blue skies and majestic rocky mountains. We are beyond blessed to live so close to such beauty and to pass on that ‘wiring’ to our kiddos. Last weekend we drove up the mountain to look at the golden aspens, but we were a week too early and bailed our search in favor for a mtn picnic. Just as well, and a perfect memory of our family of four having a wonderful time of being together, breathing in the fresh pure fall air.

This has always been one of Geneva’s favorite books, in fact she could quote the entire thing probably a year ago! We love Barnes and Noble story times, and last month they had a Madeline themed morning where Geneva actually got to meet Madeline in person. super cute.

there’s nothing like a new baby to remind you how amazing it is to be His child.

We are not breastfeeding.

If you want more details, read on.

For those of your who remember, our initial breastfeeding experience with Geneva was in a word traumatic. Everything seemed fine, we all thought my milk came in, Geneva had a fantastic latch and a great suck, but she would eat for 20 minutes a side and still scream (in hunger) afterward. After two weeks of tears and misery we saw the lactation consultants who (we now know) weren’t the best advisers. We tried every tool in their toolbox to help increase my milk supply. You name it, we tried it. No change. My poor baby would still suck until her lips were purple and although I could still express some milk by hand after a feed, it was obvious I just did not have enough for her.  She stayed a pound under birth weight until she was 6 weeks old. We started supplementing, which of course to a chronically hungry baby meant never wanting the breast again. Feedings were now a fight in addition to tearful misery. It was rough – I feel like I was not able to bond with Geneva in those dear, early feedings, and honestly it took me years to get over the trauma of it all as well as the feelings of inadequacy and rejection as her mother. It did not help that I was openly scorned and scolded (at church especially) by other (ignorant and judgmental) mothers who saw me with a bottle in hand and accused me of being selfish and ‘not trying hard enough.’ After 8 weeks of putting every known effort into breastfeeding, we had to quit. We made the switch to formula and my baby, like magic, was happy and healthy. We were finally able to enjoy each other instead of struggling for survival.

So even the thought of trying the whole thing again this time took some serious ‘gearing up.’ Someone please pat me on the back just for having the courage to try again. I knew more the second time around, knew there were potential problems, knew to be proactive and work with the lactation consultants from day one. The plan was to breastfeed for at least a week or two to evaluate, pump after every feeding from day one, see what happened when my milk came in and just take it a step at a time.

Most of you know I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes this pregnancy, which -thankfully- didn’t effect me too much, but meant that the baby at delivery would most likely have temporary hypoglycemia, and would have to have her blood sugar monitored every few hours. Clara’s blood sugars were extremely low at birth and she was immediately given a bit of formula to steady her. They pricked her heel after every breastfeed for the first 24 hours (POOR baby!! her little feet took a week to recover!), and most of the time her blood sugar was too low even after feeding and she needed supplementing. So for the first 5 days every feed went like this: I’d put her on one breast for 10 minutes, holding her with one hand while actively self expressing/massaging that breast with my free hand, switch and do it on the other side for 10 minutes (if she’d stay on that long), then supplement her with a bottle, and after that pump both breasts with the industrial size pump for 10-20 minutes (I’d express maybe 3-5 drops). Did I mention I was doing that every 2 hours?

My milk came in and we had two pretty good feedings where she seemed okay after nursing for 20-30 minutes. I still pumped after the feedings, but even with the increase of milk, could only express a tsp. full. The third feeding I put her on each breast for 20 minutes and she sucked and was audibly swallowing throughout the feed. And I took her off that second breast and she started screaming and it was an immediate flashback to 3 year prior. It was horrible. I gave her a bottle and she gulped down almost 2 full oz (a full feed). My heart sank to my stomach. I knew right then, this wasn’t going to happen. I had tried everything, had done everything, and it wasn’t going to happen.

The next morning I called the lactation consultants and Michael and Clara and I went back in for an outpatient appointment to confirm what I already knew. I did a full feed on both breasts and they weighed her before and after, and then I pumped and added that to the count. Doing everything, I was only producing 1/10 of what she needed. And we’re talking about a 5 day old baby here. I had two very wise and experienced lactation consultants separately look me in the eyes and say “this isn’t going to happen for you” while more than reassuring me that that was okay!

We really don’t have a solid reason. These ladies credited my anatomy, which was initially difficult to hear.  I’ve had a history of finding it hard to accept my small breasts as perfectly formed by the LORD, even though He’s gone out of His way many times to prove that truth to me. This whole ordeal was an opportunity not missed by Him either. While still in the hospital with Clara, the lactation consultant stopped by my room just as I was in the middle of a difficult feed (my milk was not in, Clara was balking at the breast, I was crying heavily ‘I have nothing for her!!”) and she looked at me and said, “Honestly, just looking at your anatomy I’d guess you’d have a difficult time breastfeeding.” No one had ever said that to me before and it took me off guard. Because if that really was the case, then this whole thing was God’s doing. Which made me angry. Why would he create something, form something, call it perfect, and still let it be ‘inferior’? Why would purposely rob me of something good? I was pretty upset voicing these thoughts to Michael and crying when the itunes list that was on in my room started playing “Holy is the Lord” by Andrew Peterson. It’s a song about Abraham and his emotions as he went to sacrifice Isaac, about asking God questions and the answer being simply that the Lord is holy, and that’s enough of an answer.

The lyrics that I heard while I was processing all this were these:

I waited on the Lord
And in a waking dream He came
Riding on a wind across the sand
He spoke my name
Here I am, I whispered
And I waited in the dark
The answer was a sword
That came down hard upon my heart -

Holy is the Lord
Holy is the Lord

And the Lord I will obey.

Lord, help me I dont know the way.
So take me to the mountain
I will follow where You lead
There Ill lay the body
Of the boy You gave to me
And even though You take him
Still I ever will obey
But Maker of this mountain, please
Make another way.

I found myself crying that last part – “Maker of this mountain, please make another way.” And He immediately answered me and it slapped me in the face. He said “I have! I gave you formula!” I was so caught off guard by that. I was so caught up in Him needing to make a way for me to breastfeed, but in His love and mercy to me He considered a way to make my babies LIVE. I had totally taken that ‘other way’ for granted and had allowed the perspective of those other mothers to invade my mind Instead of standing on His truth- that 1) He is Holy, 2) He does his own no wrong, 3) He created me perfectly, 4) He gave me breasts that He knew would not produce enough milk to feed my babies, 5) He gave me babies anyway, 6) He who made them, preserves them!

God be praised. I am only thankful.

And I see His graciousness more and more abound to me in this go around. He even allowed me to have gestational diabetes so that Clara would be getting the nutrition she needed immediately, which saved us from going through the trauma that I went through in the early days with Geneva, and even gave me the gift of bonding with my baby during feedings. Isn’t He good? It just proves over and over my favorite line of all time: “hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been granted in what He ordaineth?” So we are bottle feeding, and I am grateful. hallelujah.

watch?v=wJKeQyEz7Hk

I was 70-80% effaced for three weeks prior to delivery, so even though I delivered the day before my due date, THE day felt like it would never come. But at each check up I was dilated 1 more inch, so there was hope! Surpirsingly, my water broke on Saturday, Aug. 21st. I noticed something strange when at around 2pm I went to use the bathroom and was ‘still going’ after I was finished. I remembered from our childbirth refresher course that if you’re not sure your water has broken, to lie down for an hour and then to stand up and see if anything else leaks. Sure enough an hour later I went back to the restroom and experienced a much larger gush. It was a very non-movie moment of “um, yeah, I think this is it – I think my water broke.” haha. I wasn’t contracting, so we all took our time – I took a shower, shaved my legs, packed my makeup (you know all the super important things haha), called up a friend to pray with me, and eventually called the hospital to tell them I was coming in.

We got to the hospital at 5:30 or so, and after an excruciating wait (it was really only 2 hours, but still) wherein some dead-tired nurse at the end of her shift stuck me like a pincushion and gave me such a bruise on my wrist it only went away a few days ago (!!!!!!!!), (seriously it was bad – I was complaining about how badly it hurt even throughout my roughest contractions) I finally was admitted to labor and delivery! yay!

It was kind of surreal – admitted to l&d, and almost 6 hours after my water broke, and not one contraction. The Dr. let me wait one more hour and then at 9:30pm insisted we had to start pitocin. It was a disappointment for sure, I had pitocin with my induction with Geneva and in addition to being bound to the bed and machines, it is proven to make your contractions longer and harder, but we had no choice. They uped the dose every hour, and it definitely worked – in the first hour on the pit I was contracting every 90 seconds. Inititally, I thought she might be born at dawn, which would be pretty cool for someone who’s name means ‘full of light’ but at the rate that pitocin brought on those contractions that was not to be!

I did get an epidural at about 6cm. This was the plan from the beginning, specifically to avoid my pain spiraling into a migraine during l&d. It’s much easier to handle any other kind of pain when you have usuable mental capacity. I’m SO grateful I got the epidural. It was a MUCH better experience that last time (last time it was at a teaching hospital and the student did NOT know what they doing!). And this time around we knew more – I chose to deny the ‘new’ way of administering it, which gives the patient a brief initial spinal block to bring immediate relief. This meant feeling the contractions for an additional 45 minutes, but I didn’t mind. I chose to deny the spinal on the off chance that tapping into my spinal cord would increase the chances of getting a spinal headache. I’m not sure it would have, but since the main reason of getting the epidural was to avoid headaches, I didn’t mind taking extra percausions. We also kept it at a lower dose where I could still feel the contractions, and especially at the end as they got stronger and more frequent it felt like I didn’t even have pain medication any more and was back to focusing/breathing through them.

About the last hour or two as the contractions were at their strongest, my hormones started raging and I turned frigidly cold and started shaking uncontrollably. My sweet mother in law stood by me the entire time and encouraged me while she rubbed my legs. It was the worst and sweetest part of labor. Also at this time Clara’s heart rate was being erratic (they had an internal monitor in by now), as we could later tell was because the cord was wrapped around her neck.

They called the Dr. in when I was at 9.5 and when he came a little before 4am I was at 10 and ready to push. One push progress. Two pushes and she was crowning. Three pushes (same 1st contraction) and they all yelled “STOP!” I had no clue what was going on but looked down and saw the Dr. putting away his scissors (= episiotomy = not happy mama!) but I found out later it was because the cord was around her neck and they had to get her out PRONTO. (STILL, tell a girl before you cut her!!) One more contraction’s worth of pushing and she was out! 4:09am Sunday morning. (i love the my MIL captured this picture – that indescribable feeling of so much joy you just cry!)

They put her on my stomach while we waited for the cord to stop pulsing and it was scary she was SO WHITE. Her little head just looked like a white rock (due to the cord trouble). It was so encouraging to hear her cry, and when she finally started to get more color. I rubbed all that white stuff (what’s that called?) into her skin as she laid there on me and we all took her in. Of course, she was just gorgeous. She looked so much like Geneva, but so different too. We noticed immediately that she had my hands/long fingers, my ears (poor girl), what will be brown eyes, and Michael’s chin. She got cleaned up while I got stitched up and then reunited for the first feeding (more on that in another post). 7lbs 2oz, 19.5 inches long, healthy, and a perfect blessing from our good God. <3 Welcome, Clara Renee!! We adore and cherish you!

So Geneva and I have been working on being kind in our speech lately, and she’s learning that just b/c something might be honest, it doesn’t always make it beneficial or loving to say. So the other day we are driving to the pool and Geneva starts to say “Mom, those (sun) glasses look sill…” and then stopped herself and said instead “Mom, you looked very nice before you put on those glasses!” hahahahaha. I was quite impressed at her problem solving skills, and blessed by her sweet heart. I think she’s going to be a great big sister.

Grammy Rogers is incredible, and knows my little girl all too well!  This week Geneva opened a package to discover matching ballerina tutus for her and her bitty baby (as well as a beautiful coming home outfit for Clara, among other things). Of course, Geneva has worn almost nothing else since. THANK YOU GRAMMY ROGERS!!!

(note: in the middle of the picture taking Geneva put Cate down to show off her ballet moves for the camera)

Here are the promised pictures of Clara’s new nursery. It’s very calm and light, and I think already fits her perfectly. It’s inspired by her name which means ‘full of light,’ by my mother’s love of ‘bluebirds of happiness,’ and by a verse from Matthew that the Lord has kept on my heart for the last year or so.

This room used to be my office, and I’ve left the bookcase and books from that room and I really enjoy it. It’s good to have history and legacy in a room. I made the mobile out of branches from our yard and paper flowers a la MarthaStewart.com and added a real birds nest from my granddaddy’s farm in TN. The mobile sways gently when the fan is on in the room and I just love it! The animal artwork is from a vintage children’s book of mommy and baby animals I took apart to tie in the blue of the curtains and bluebirds. The child’s chair (Geneva’s chair) was my mom’s as a child. Very special! Also from my mom are a couple yellow and white vintage linens that add that antique charm I love so much to the room. We took out the closet doors and opened up the nook for our changing station. I think it works quite well, esp. since the room is so tiny. The rocker is new and I feel very spoiled in it. What a sweet husband I have to buy such a gift for me! And you’ll notice a small blue angel behind some trees hanging on the wall. It’s actually from my own nursery bought in Europe by my parents and plays a lovely melody of ‘lullaby and good night.”

I’m really grateful for such a wonderful place for Clara. I pray it is a room of peace and blessing for her!

some highlights of my darling girl too cute not to share!

Her joyful heart is such a blessing!

Michael and I have never had a bed in six years of marriage. A frame and mattresses, thankfully yes, but never a bed. We’d been looking for some time and decided on our ‘dream bed’ – a modern 4 poster – but never had the extra couple thousand dollars to spend on it. Then around our anniversary this year I was browsing through craiglist and what should pop up but the exact bed, granted it was in pretty bad shape, but for only $100!!! We snapped it up and with one weekend of work got it in pretty great shape. Every night it feels like we are staying at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast, not just our room. We are still in grateful awe to our sweet Abba for such an unexpected, blessing. I am so amazed how He is the God of abundance, the One who gives us beyond what we even need, the One who loves delighting us in even these kinds of things!

Clara means “full of light.” LOVE that. I’ve been meditating on “light” verses in Scripture accordingly, and the Lord has been good to give me things to pray over both my daughters having to do with being Light-ed inwardly.

I’m thankful, and glad to do it, since Psalms says that “light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart” (Ps.97:11). He also gave me a promise last week for my children, specifically for confidence in the midst of a worrisome and trying pregnancy, that “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (Jn. 15:16). I needed that from Him. Both for my pregnancy with Clara and for a renewed confidence that God is truly truly in my children’s lives, working His purposes. I think I needed to freshly repartner with Him.

So specifically right now, I’m focusing on praying Col.1:9-14 for my girls:
⁹And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. ¹³He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

and specifically for Clara, Daniel 5:14 -
“I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you.”

I claim all these Scriptures and promises over my children – and trust them to the Lord, that they will truly be fruit that abides.