Dearest little girl,
To tell you how we’ve waited for you these nine months and to say that your arrival has been highly anticipated in our family is such a grand understatement.  Your sisters, knowing without doubt you were a girl (despite us not finding out) have thought of you and talked of you every day for so many months. With two miscarriages last year, we were even more aware, more grateful of your presence in our life as “the one we’d get to meet”.  Your next oldest brother Finn has asked for weeks if you were “done growing” and the rest of your siblings have spent many evenings poking at your tiny feet and other parts protruding from my growing belly.

We went to church last Sunday and headed home for a sunny afternoon at home.  I’d planned to make a grocery and gas trip just to be well stocked since your due date was now one week away.  As soon as I walked in the front door from church my water broke.  Grocery shopping was shelved, the Seahawks game was on the TV and Daddy quickly passed out lunch food to all your siblings lined up on the couch.  I remember glancing down the hall as I picked up in the kitchen and he was bursting with energy.  It looked like he was bouncing off the floor as he tossed food on their plates, watched the game excitedly and let the reality soak in that we were about to meet you.  As soon as the game ended he told the kids they needed to help pick up, they asked why and he told them because the midwife was coming.  They shrieked and got to work and asked a million questions.

The midwife and her team got here mid afternoon.  I had already been on a slow walk down the street with your brothers and sisters, soaking in the last moments before labor got harder.  We’d done a frenzied clean up of the house and were ready for whatever the day held.  I labored downstairs in the midst of the noise and energy that is our life every day.  Rylee and Audrey rarely left my side and the brothers played outside with Papa.  Once it got too hard to sit quietly and breath deep with your Daddy letting me squeeze his hand till it hurt, we went upstairs to my room.  Not much more than an hour later and you were here!  My eyes stayed squeezed shut until the moment you were on my belly.  When they opened, there you were and you were so beautiful.  You were quiet but so alert and so lovely.  I reached to support your little bum and realized right away you were a girl.  I asked them to make sure, and Daddy said yes and I looked up at your sisters who were right next to my head the whole time and I will never forget the look on their faces.  A sister.  The sister they’d waited for, prayed for, wanted so much to meet…was finally here.

You are born into a lot of love.  Love and noise and sometimes chaos but always love.  In the time it took me to write this “part 1” of your story you were held and snuggled for quite a while by your brother Kyler, your sister Audrey, your mama and your dad.  You aren’t an afterthought to our family despite being our number six.  You are a perfectly created gift, given to us by the God who gives all life.  We have waited for you and we are overjoyed that you are here.

All my love,

Mama

Here is the progression of your arrival in pictures: