I finished the baby announcement for Rakelli and got them in the mail a few days ago. They were in the mail when she was two weeks old. I feel really good about that progress :) The announcement is really a tri-fold card, but I split up the images so it is easier to see. I love to have these for later when my babies are not babies. I forget how little they once were.  Remember, you can click on an image to make it bigger.

In case you want the full story, here it goes . . .  She is technically two weeks early, but I really think it's more like three weeks.  My due date was always kind of confusing because she didn't consistently measure where she should during my doctor appointments.  When I went in for my 20 week ultrasound, the ultrasound technician said that she was only developed to 18 weeks and she wanted to wait for 2 more weeks so the heart would be ready to look at.  At that point, my doctor changed my due date ahead one week instead of two because my babies tend to come early.  He was worried that I may go into real labor and they would try to stop it (if we moved the due date ahead two weeks) even though she would be ready to come.  So, according to the due date we set, she was two weeks early, but according to how she measured the full pregnancy, she was three weeks early.  Who really knows!  Anyway, at a doctor appointment last Friday, I was already dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced.  The doctor was pretty sure that she would be here within a week from then and said that if I wasn't already in labor at my next appointment (which was just Tuesday the next week), he would strip my membranes since I was already so favorable.  On Monday night, I was having very consistent contractions, but they weren't increasing in intensity, so I wasn't sure what to do.  No real labor came, but I had my doctor appointment the following day.  I was still having contractions about 2-3 minutes apart when I went to my doctor appointment.  I told him about that and he decided to strip my membranes as we had previously discussed.  It wasn't as bad as I was expecting pain-wise, but still not delightful in any regard!  After he was done, he said that Steve and I could just go drive around for a little while (but that we should stay close), or we could just go to the hospital and get going with the labor.  After clarifying that they would not just put me into a room to monitor and then possibly send me home, we decided to just go get admitted to the hospital and have our little baby.  We got there and checked in by about 3:00 pm.  I was measuring almost a 4 when I went to my doctor appointment and by the time we were at the hospital in the room, I was closer to a 5 (just from stripping my membranes).  Around 3:10, the doctor broke my water to help things move forward and they got my IV in around 3:30.  Contractions were getting stronger and they said to get my epidural sooner rather than later because they had an emergency c-section on a 29 week old that was going to occupy the anesthesiologist.  I got the epidural around 4:15, at which point I was dilated to a 6.  The nurse wanted to see if my own contractions would get strong enough without using pitocin, so I waited until about 5:00.  At that point, she talked to the doctor and he said to get me started on pitocin.  I would be able to do it on my own, but it would just take longer :)  So they hooked me up around 5:20.  At 6:00, I was very ready to push so they called the doctor over.  He took a little while to get there and the nurses were worried that he was taking too long.  He came in around 6:10 and got ready.  They reminded me when to push and we waited for my next contraction.  I started pushing and the doctor told me to push less and then to stop since she was already out.  I didn't even have to push one full time!  She was healthy and had a good cry.  With no stitches, tearing, or episiotomy, I was sitting pretty myself (as an expression, really I'm sure I was quite disgusting).  She has a cute squeaky cry she makes sometimes and we have decided that she may just be a soprano when she grows up!  The brothers absolutely adore her and will just stare at her with big grins on their faces.  Conley even points at her and wants to get close.  We are doing great and have already fallen in love with Rakelli.

Conley is finally starting to show an interest in walking.  A couple days after Christmas (when he was 13 months), I put him down and he took about eight steps.  Then he realized he was on his own and slowly crouched down and finished with crawling.  It was another three full weeks before he wanted to do that again.  He has been having a lot of fun walking to not only Steve and me, but also to his brothers.  They sure love that, too! 

Conley is such a happy little guy and he laughs at all of us.  We love to play with him because it is always rewarding.  Who knew I was so funny?  Anyway, I love the picture really close of his face because you can really see his eye color.  They are brown by the pupil and then kind of blue-green on the outside.  I don't even know what to call that color.  When we have Conley practice walking to us, Zander always says, "My turn!"  So then he walks to us, which isn't exciting because he can already walk just fine, but he thinks it's awesome.