Praying Girls

We took some time to take some pictures of the girls sitting on a chair together. When we looked at them later, we found this one which made us smile. It looks like both girls are holding their hands in prayer. Maybe we just like it because we live with Eve daily and her persuit of everyone holding their hands the same way when we pray or she will wait and try to work it out. Maybe she is just teaching Daphne early.

Daphne Debra Rider

We welcomed our newest addition, Daphne to our family on Friday, February 19th at 4:39pm. She came out crying after a sucessful induction weighing 7lbs 3oz and being 19in long. At first she looked just like Eve to us, but the more we look at her, the more differences we see in them. Her name Daphne means victory in Hebrew as her so far short history from conception through her birth has shown us how God is victorious over the challenges in our life. Her middle name Debra is after my amazing mother whose own birthday is just a few short days earlier.
We were all sent home from the hospital on Sunday, but by Monday, we started to think Daphne was becoming more yellowish in her skin pigment. Since Eve had had jaudice we wanted to get her tested just to make sure. Motherly intuition was right as her numbers indicated she needed some light therapy to help her. She staying on the specially light bed from Tues - Friday when she was finally given a clean bill of health.

We are definitly adjusting to being a family of four, but it has been great and we are blessed with great help. My mother is staying with us since before her birth and a few more weeks and it has been great to have her help. Plus our wonderful friends from church have brought us delicious meals. And Eve has been a great help. She is quick to fetch some diapers or whatever we request and has shown great patience in waiting for her turn. We are a blessed family. Here are some pictures from Daphne's first week of life.

Shoot the Duck

A few weeks ago, Tyler's parents were getting some remodeling done and it was time for Tyler to have to go through some of his childhoos things and bring them to our house. Well along with lots of legos, books, and Nascar diecuts one of the things he brought home was his Old-School Nintendo. I guess you would call it the original Nintendo and all his games. He set it up and with lots of blowing, we were able to get most everything to work. We actually can't get Duck Hunt to actually shoot the ducks but Eve likes to pretend with the gun. She even will shoot after cars when Tyler plays a racing game. We enjoy playing it a bit before the baby comes and then we will probably sell it or something. So if anyone is in the market for a classic nintendo, a game genie and about 10 games, give us a shotout.

My Birth Concerns

So on Friday, we went to see our DR for what was our full-term/37 week appointment. They had to do the strep B test and check to see if my body was making any progress. I remember feeling lots of anticipation because I really thought something might have been happening. When he told us that nothing was going on in that department, I wasn't at first concerned, I mean I still had a few weeks before my due date and was taken back by when he started talking to us about all the concerns he had. This is a new dr than the one we had with Eve because we had switched since we were unhappy. Anyway the dr went through Eve's birth step by step and told us all the risks and harmful situations our previous dr had put Eve and me through. It was shocking because we were told none of this and the only thing that made it easier to handle was that Eve is healthy and had not even one complication at birth. He then went to tell us the risks and precautions that he will have to take with this next birth. He offered us a scheduled c-section, but he may have seen the panic in my eyes, and talked about a possible induction as well. But he wants to do both before he leaves for vacation on the 24th and around 39 weeks. So all of a sudden in 2 weeks we are being told that one of those two options will happen if nothing happens naturally in the meantime. But the great news is that baby girl is still doing good.

The whole situation at first sent me in a huge panic. I wanted a nice natural and less painful birth that last time and felt like that bubble quickly burst, especially if it involved putting our little girl at risk. I am torn between what I may want and what I want most of all, a healthy little baby no matter how its gets here. I think I was hurt because there is a chance that there is something wrong with me that lets me not birth babies correctly and put them at risk and I already deal with PCOS and not being able to get pregnant and its hard to see yourself as even more damaged. I see the large family we dreamed of becoming harder to get c-sections start to limit the number. I worried about being away from Eve longer and my mom not being here yet (although she is making some new arrangements to be here and calm my nerves). Its like it brought all the little fears we have getting ready to anticipate a new birth to the top and made dealing with all of them a lot to handle.

So where are we going from here. We have to go in again on the 10th and 15th and if there is any progress, an induction is possible. The dr is concerned because her head is not engaged and already to big so we will have to check that too. I am supposed to try and do things to help bring on braxton-hicks contractions, or real ones for the matter because going into real labor is the best thing. But maybe the BHs will help make some progress. So I will be eating spicy food, drinking my raspberry leaf tea(even though I hate tea, its only 4 cups a day), squats, walking around my house, and any other wife's tales I can think may help. But of course the best thing, praying that God will work out the whole situation. God worked a miracle in just allowing us to get pregnant without meds and our little girl is still in his hand. Without giving away her name (and we will not say yes or no to anyone who may now figure it out) we plan on giving her a name that means victory in hebrew because we know God will be victorious in whatever happens with our little one.

I guess I write this post in hopes that you will continue to join with us in prayer for our little girl and the whole situation. I guess I am also writing it as an outlet for myself to better see the situation and gain some peace in it all. We will keep you updated.

Some Seattle Shots

In the beginning of January, we had the priveledge of going to the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual meeting in Seattle. We got to go with fellow members of our Kansas Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Board, that we represent our district on. We had a great time enjoying the sights and tastes of the area, as well as learning lots at the conference. Here are a few pics that we took around town.Our Friend from Summer Project, Johanna, catching a fish at the World's Famous Pike Place Fish Market. She did great after Tyler didn't want to try.Mount Rainier

Tyler at the top of the Space NeedleAt the Base of the space needle, and a small belly shot for Laurie.

Eve and Aunt Kate

January has been a crazy month. We needed to recover from our cross country drive to PA and back and then we went to Seattle for the American Farm Bureau meeting and later this week we head to Wichita for another conference. We will be lucky to recover for a few weeks before the baby comes. Anyway, I just wanted to show a cute picture of Eve and her Aunt Kate. My sister Kate was kind enough to come and spend the time watching Eve and they had so much fun. And maybe there will be some Seattle pics coming soon.

Eve's New HairDo

Here are some pics of Eve's new hairdo. She asked for a haircut because her long hair was starting to get in the way and she doesn't like to keep it pulled back. She wanted it short like Dad's but Mom made her settle for Dora. She seems much happier with her little bob and the spunkyness of it fits her personality.