I am lucky.

Tessa is 2 weeks old today. She is such a joy in our lives! Every other night seems to be a challenge but oddly enough I don't mind missing out on sleep to take care of my daughter. She is starting to smile at us and "talk". We got the go ahead to let her sleep as long as she likes at night and Bryce and I both could not be happier to not have to set our alarm to wake us up every 3 hours to feed her. =) Jace is a great big brother. He loves his sister and gets so excited each time he gets to help feeding her or holding her. He hasn't learned just yet that he has to use an inside voice now but I know he'll get it soon.

After I had Jace I didn't have an issue right away with how my body looked. I had more weight around my hips, stretch marks on my belly, and I wasn't the skinniest thing around my belly. It never bothered me that I didn't have the perfect body anymore or that I would never wear a bikini again. For some reason I've been having a hard time with my body image since having Tessa. I hate that my belly is bigger than I want. I still have stretch marks. I'm even counting down the days until I can start working out. (28 days!!) Tonight I was Pinterest looking at postpartum tips and tricks of every kind. I came across this picture of a women's belly. It was full of stretch marks and beside it wrote, "For every woman unhappy with her postpartum marks, is another who wishes she had them." This got me thinking. I am lucky to have been given the chance to grow two children inside me. I am lucky that I have these marks because it means my body grew and stretched to great lengths to give my babies a home until they were ready to meet this world. I struggled with postpartum anxiety and depression after having Jace and I worry that I'll struggle with it again this time around. I need to keep reminding myself that I am lucky. There are so many women out there who would make amazing mothers but for some reason God has not gifted them the opportunity to bare child. I am lucky I was given the chance to carrying my two babies. Yes, my body may not be the most pleasing to the eyes but it was my children's home and those marks are a reminder to me that I'm lucky.

Welcome to the World Baby Tessa!

On January 8th, at 10:32am, Tessa Ivie Lynn joined our family. She weighed 7 pounds and 11 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. She is perfect in every way!!

We had waited for this beautiful girl to arrive for a long time. I was one week overdue before I got induced and it couldn't have come any faster!! We checked into the hospital at 7am. I made the mistake of not taking a tour of the hospital before hand so we had pretty much no clue as to where to go! It was kinda embarrassing. Once we found where we needed to go we got put into what they called the nicest delivery room. (Same thing happened when I went into labor with jace. ;) lucky me!) After an hour of paperwork, vital sign checks, and an IV put in, they started the Pitocin! That instantly put my contractions at uncomfortable every 5 minutes. Perfect right? Labor is going, things are good. Well my doctor said "lets step it up another notch and break your water!" I was thinking in mind that he better not go too far away because with Jace, once my water broke it wasn't long before he arrived! So Pitocin at 8, water broken at 830. I started pushing at 10:25am and with a push and a half Miss Tessa arrived. =) My doctor actually almost missed the delivery. The nurse wanted me to do a practice push to see how fast we needed the doctor and she was like "oh! better get him here asap!!" Talk about an easy labor right?! I definitely got lucky with my labor which is good because if I had a tough time after having such a tough pregnancy, I don't know if I would ever consider having more kids!

Not that there was anything wrong with Tessa, she was healthy, I told Bryce he had to stay by her side no matter what. So while she got measured, bathed, and looked at Bryce was right there by her side so she knew that her daddy was around. =) Tessa also decided that since we had pretty much forced her to come that she needed to let us know all about it! She cried almost nonstop for the first 2 hours of her life. Since she came so fast her body didn't have the proper time to adjust to life outside of the womb, her sinuses were FULL of amniotic fluid which caused her to snort and snore and breath funny. There wasn't much we could do for her for it other than wait for it to clear up on its own. We did end up trying saline drops in each nostril and that helped her out TONS!

Jace had stayed with my sister and her husband while we were in the hospital so later that afternoon they brought him by the hospital and Jace got to meet his little sister. =) He was excited for the first few minutes and then he was ready to go play with toys.

Having two children at home now is trying at times but I am so happy that my family is complete and we are all healthy. =)

My mom loves being a Grandmama to so many kids now. 

Daddy's and their babies. The cousins are only 6 weeks apart. 

All ready to go home! Yes she has little shoes on. =)

And she's out for the count!