A Week of Introductions

Susannah was introduced to several fun and very important things this past week. First of all, her Aunt KK and Uncle Bear (Katie and Brian) came all the way from Denver to meet her, which was so much fun!

Best of friends

Pals

Aunt KK was able to come for 8 whole days (Uncle Bear came later in the week), which was awesome for both Susannah and me.  Poor Pete had to put up with our twin antics for more days than he ever has before, but he was a good sport and seemed to dismiss our weird ways relatively easily.  PopPop and SuSu also came in town this week to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.  We had an amazing time hosting the four of them, though we were definitely missing Eric, Lauren, and the boys, as well as our Acker family.

Susannah also experienced her first Iron Bowl! 

Ready to cheer on the Auburn Tigers

And what a game it was!  Our sweet girl didn't last too long, though -- the excitement and anticipation must have been too much for her to handle because she was asleep by the 2nd quarter.  She didn't even wake up when I was literally jumping in the air with her in my arms in jubilation as Auburn won the game with no time left on the clock.  One day, I'm sure, she will know and appreciate the 2013 victory over Alabama...

Passed out on the couch

And in celebration of Auburn's win over Alabama, Susannah got to celebrate around her first bonfire.  It was chilly outside, so I, of course, bundled our girl up in preparation for sub-zero temperature.

"Seriously, Mom?"

Pete's got crazy eyes, I've got tired eyes, and Susannah's fast asleep

Pete and Brian built the bonfire in our backyard, and it turned out great.  It also offered a nice change of scenery for Baby and me, seeing as we pretty much just hang out inside all day now that it's chilly out!

Today, I pulled out the Moby wrap that Brae gave me to try out, and it works pretty well!

Susannah fussed a little bit when Pete and I were figuring out how to get her in there, but as soon as she was settled, that girl CONKED OUT!  Hands-free cuddling was great!  After about 20 minutes of wearing her and her still being fast asleep, I unstrapped that precious bundle and transferred her to her swing, where she continued to sleep for another half hour.  This may very well come in handy for us!  

And lastly, if you don't think Susannah looks like her daddy in the below picture, you're crazy.

Definitely an Acker!

Two Full Weeks and 647 Full Diapers

Our angel baby

Today marks 2 weeks since Susannah was born and 1 week until her due date!  What a whirlwind the past 2 weeks have been.  I couldn't be more thankful that our baby loves to eat, loves to sleep, and REALLY loves to poop.  She thinks it's hilarious - get this - to poop just enough to necessitate a diaper change; wait until the chosen diaper-changer has the soiled diaper off her little bum; then let loose on all the poopy she was holding in to see just how talented said diaper-changer is in catching it all with a clean diaper, wipes, or bare hands (depending on how prepared he/she was going into the changing).  During today's version of this scenario, Susannah successfully pooped in 3 different diapers in less than 3 minutes.  Maybe less than 2.  Yes, we know, she's extremely talented and advanced among the rest.  

I still think back over the events that took place 2 weeks ago on a daily basis, and I realized the other day that I never gave some props where props were due.  The internet gives you all these checklists of things to do in each month of pregnancy, and I didn't do pretty much any of them until about month 8.  So about a week prior to the day we went into labor, I had drawn up a birth plan, written scriptures on notecards, gathered DVDs and other "comfort" objects, and had every intention of talking with Pete about what his role would probably need to look like once it was go-time.  I never did get around to that last one, outside of telling him I would not want him hovering all lovey-dovey over me like the husbands in our childbirth class video.  Looking back, I really don't know what I would have asked Pete to do or not do - I had absolutely no clue what was coming, nor did he.  The Lord granted Pete discernment that day and gave him the exact words to say and the exact things to do at the exact moments that I needed them.  With each contraction, Pete reminded me that it was "one more down."  And during a contraction, he would say, "Just a few more seconds, Sal.  You can do it, just a few more seconds."  And he recited scripture from memory to me because the notecards I wrote previously never made it out of the suitcase.  And he let me grip his arm when necessary.  And held the oxygen mask to my face between pushing.  And told me over and over again how proud he was of me.  And prayed for all 3 of us.

We both knew what my role was for that day: woman who pushes baby out.  But as for Pete's, who would have known beforehand that I needed any of that from him?  I am so thankful that I married a man who prays! And one who is receptive to the Lord's instruction in his life.  Little Susannah's first definition of her heavenly Father is going to come from what she sees in her earthly father, and I do believe it will be a great and wonderful association.

And without further ado, some preciousness:

A short video of the Hiccup Queen.  There is nothing exciting here, just little girl hiccupping, which I find absolutely adorable now that she's no longer afflicted with them in the womb.

And some pics:

It's hard to see, but her hair after a bath is hilarious!  It will not comb down regardless of any adult efforts.  I think we may have some curly locks on our hands.

Daddy snuggling with Baby Girl in the blanket he was wrapped in as a mere babe!

Sunbathing for some Vitamin D and showing off the fact that she, in fact, has a belly button!

Tour de Nursery de Susannah

Well, Mom and I just finished the nursery today, 8 days AFTER Susannah decided to join us.  Better late than never, right?  I am pretty much obsessed with her room - it's just too bad she may never sleep in there if my postpartum emotions don't slow down sometime soon.  (Kidding...kind of.)

The first night we were home from the hospital, Mom asked me, "Where is baby going to sleep tonight?"  I was very confused by this question, and responded matter-of-factly, "In her crib -- that's her room."  Well, once bedtime came, I put little 7 pound Susannah (that was her weight upon leaving the hospital) in that massive crib, walked into my room, crawled into bed, and proceeded to bawl my eyes out to Pete, explaining between sobs that "I j-j-just ca-a-a-an't leave h-h-her in there toni-i-ight..."  We have since attempted naps in the crib, but still no nighttime sleeps.  Mommy just isn't ready for that yet.  She's been sleeping in the awesome swing Aunt Sarah gave us in our room, and we will hopefully upgrade to the crib soon -- maybe by the age of 4...

So here are some pictures of her amazing nursery.  

The first thing you see when you walk in the door, her changing table / dresser

Window treatment, courtesy of the amazing SuSu

Crib skirt, courtesy of the amazing SuSu

The verse in the frame is James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above."

Her little bookshelf -- if you know me at all, you know we will be reading a TON!

Seeing it in real life is much better, so come visit us!  I'll even let you change a diaper or two on that fancy changing table.

The Arrival of Miss Susannah Jane Acker

Introducing for the very first time on Acker Country Living...
Miss Susannah Jane Acker!

What a surprise to have our sweet baby girl join us three weeks before her due date!  She knew what she was doing though, and I am so thankful to have birthed a 7 1/2 pound baby 3 weeks early rather than a 10 1/2 pound baby on her due date.  Gracious.  The following is the story of how everything went down with her arrival, and it gets a little lengthy, seeing as I now have an awesome blog-updating companion (see below) and not a whole lot I'm allowed to do just following a natural labor; so put your reading glasses on before proceeding...

(There are pictures at the end if you'd prefer to pass by the birth story and look at the good stuff!)

Photo cred: the amazing SuSu

On Sunday afternoon last week, after a weekend of things being a little different in my belly than it had been, I told Pete, "I know I've been wrong about almost every prediction I've made with this pregnancy, but I think this girl is going to come this week..."  To which we both laughed and talked vaguely like, "yeah, maybe..." and "that'd be cool..." and "we'll see..."  Who knew just how right on I would be.

Pete was planning on hitting the woods at 4:00am the next morning (Monday), and I was exhausted from your general 3rd trimester lack of sleep; so we both went to bed early that night.  Around 10, my stomach began to feel a little like I had food poisoning, so I got out of bed, thinking that I might be having false-labor contractions.  Just for kicks, I began to time them.  Though they were consistently 4 1/2 minutes apart, I had convinced myself they'd eventually stop because of the varying level of intensity of each one and I'd go back to bed.

After calling my sister-in-law Lauren shortly thereafter to pick her brain on what I should be doing, I jumped in the shower to try to relax and see if these darn false-labor contractions would finally begin to wane.  Upon hearing the shower kick on at the midnight hour, Pete woke up and immediately felt around on the bed for puddles of amniotic fluid, deliriously convinced my water had broken and I was calm enough to get out of bed without shouting expletives.  Once realizing the impossibility of that situation, he came to check on me, and I nonchalantly told him I was just having false-labor contractions and would be back in bed soon -- so he should do the same.  After asking me 25+ questions to confirm said false labor, he headed back to bed, and I headed to the living room to continue timing my false labor, you know, just in case...*

By about 2:15am, the intensity of my not-so-false labor contractions had increased significantly to the point of doubling me over, so I decided to wake up Pete in order to head to the hospital.  When we finally reached our destination at about 3:15, I told the receptionist very honestly that I had no prior knowledge of contractions but was pretty sure I was in labor and had been for about 5 hours, to which she replied, "Oh, well, if you're actually in labor, your contractions now are nothing compared to what they will be..."  Very optimistic, thanks for that.  

We were all under the impression that I would be something like 3 cm dilated or just around the beginning stages of labor since this was my first pregnancy and those labors tend to last 15+ hours.  Upon the nurses' inspection, the one checking me up looked at the other nurse in the room, started dying laughing, and said, "Um, well, you're aboouuut....8-9 cm!"  Excuse me, WHAT?!  

Before we had time to absolutely freak out or get remotely nervous about the fact that we were a centimeter away from birthing a baby, they moved us to the delivery room, hooked me up to an IV, called the OB, and told me to chew on ice and try to breathe.  Suffice it to say, once the OB arrived, it was go-time; I started pushing at 4:15am and precious Susannah was crying in the room with us at 5:02!

I know how seemingly ideal this situation was for a first-time mother, and I can't thank the Lord enough for our labor story.  Now with that said, it was not an "easy" labor, by any means.  In fact, it was by far the most painful thing I've ever experienced.  But my goodness, in the words of my sweet sister-in-law Beth, I "now know what it's like to have my heart on the outside of my body."  I can't even begin to describe the amount of love I feel for our baby girl.  Postpartum emotions aside, my cup is overflowing, and I love every second I've had with her this past week, even the seconds that take place in the wee hours of the morning.

Susannah is a GOOD and PERFECT gift from above (James 1:17), and we cannot wait to introduce her to all of you!

*Please know that I am not an idiot!  I had read page 269 of What to Expect When You're Expecting (false labor vs. real labor) 18 times, and my symptoms fit both categories.  Just wanted to set the record straight!

And now for some pictures...

Meeting her very sweaty mommy for the first time.  She looks huge from this angle!

The enamored Figgy

The proud SuSu

The in-love Daddy and happy Pops

The doting PopPop

This Month!

Who's excited about meeting Miss Susannah Jane Acker THIS MONTH?!  

My goodness, I can't get over the fact that we have officially made it to November...where have the last 8 months gone?  We have three weeks and some change until the due date, so I'm taking advantage of these last few days of justifying the following (all of which were purchased and partially consumed yesterday):

CARBS

CARBS AND SUGAR

CARBS AND MORE SUGAR

SUGAR AND MORE SUGAR!

I also made a lovely broccoli, cabbage, and kale salad, of which I took 3 bites.  So there's that.  Other items we're checking off the list for Baby's arrival are as follows:

Baby swing assembled...check

Thanks, Aunt Sarah!  Now all it needs is one sweet little Susie!

DVDs selected for delivery room contraction distraction...check

The 3 movies I can recite by memory, of course

Deer antlers mounted on mantle...check and check!

Baby Girl's gotta know what's priority around here, man.

I've never had so much fun waiting on and preparing for something in my whole life.  Susannah's big debut will be here before we know it!  Godspeed, little girl!

It Could Be Days...

We're down to less than a month until our due date, but the doc is saying we probably won't last that long!  WHAT?!  With the long list of to-dos still in existence, I'm just glad we finally have the crib set up so she'll have some place to sleep once she arrives, be it tomorrow or 3 weeks from now.

I convinced Pete to take some pictures with me this weekend in order to document that we are, in fact, still married!  I've taken lots of pictures of myself to send belly pics to family and close friends and several of him doing random stuff around the house, but we have not taken ONE together since we found out we were expecting.  One of Pete's least favorite things in life is taking pictures, let alone multiple pictures back-to-back, so getting him to agree to this required careful planning, but he was a good sport; so here are a few favs...

Reminding him this is costing us no money and that I only wanted one - just one - wardrobe change...

This one made it to Instagram within the hour...

The backdrop is our front porch view, no big deal.

Yes. I love this one!

Impersonating mine and Katie's senior picture.

We were so happy to have Figgy and Pops come in town for a visit this weekend!  Figgy was our photographer, and she didn't charge us a dime for her services.  I am also quite positive that her presence was the only way I was able to get Pete to agree to the wardrobe change.  We had a wonderful time with them this weekend planting flowers, pressure-washing porches, hanging nursery artwork, eating good food, and spending some much-needed quality time together.    

  

It is a tough task to get Figgy and Pops to pose for a pic, but I snuck one in after our quick photoshoot, and it is definitely a framer.

They are adorable, end of story.

Pete and I are absolutely overflowing with excitement for what the coming weeks hold.  The Lord is making it clearer with every day that He is entrusting us with something very, very special, and with that comes great responsibility - both in caring for Susannah's physical needs, as well as her spiritual and emotional needs.  The challenge is upon us, and we can't wait!

Changes on the Homefront

The due date countdown: 43 days!  Baby Susannah will be here before we know it, which means the following things are going on in the Acker house:

• Extreme deep cleaning
• Waddling, lots of waddling
• Installation of safety outlets - 43, to be exact... apparently the previous owners never wanted to use extension cords.  We would have gladly just bought those el cheapo outlet plugs, but ALL outlet and light switch covers had been painted over, so poor Pete has been replacing ALL of them.
• Baby furniture painting and assembly, along with multiple rearrangements
• Pete having to help heave me up from sitting, lying, squatting, kneeling, etc.  
• Crying at the drop of a hat (me, not Pete... that I know of anyway)

...Among other things.  It becomes more of a reality everyday that we will have a third body to care for very soon - a month and a half, give or take a few days, Lord willing.  I have been holding Matthew 6:34 close to my heart as we draw near to the big day with great anticipation: "Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself."  The enemy would love for me to dwell on all the things that could potentially go wrong over the next few days, months, and years.  I could very easily give into all those anxious concerns about what life will hold for us as parents or, more importantly, what life will hold for our sweet baby girl.  Nobody wants that, but all - yes, all - pregnancy books address these concerns because it is SUCH a common thing for expectant mothers.

Thankfully, the Lord has reminded me over and over again that He has every detail of our future already worked out, so there's no need for my worrying.  One recent reminder came last Sunday at church.  We sang the well-known hymn "Because He Lives" just before the sermon, and I could hardly sing because of the emotion that was overtaking me.  I know verse 1 and the chorus like the back of my hand because this was a benediction favorite of my parents' church, where I grew up going.  But verse 2...oh my.  I don't believe I ever remember singing it before:

How sweet to hold

A newborn baby,

And feel the pride

And joy he gives.

But greater still

The calm assurance:

This child can face

Uncertain days

Because He lives!

Granted, any song, story, or sentence that has the word "baby" or "Jesus" (or "it," or "the"...) in it makes me cry these days, but what truth!  Praise the Lord: I can rest assured that Susannah is under the protection of Jesus - a protection much stronger and more reliable than what Pete or I could ever give her - as she faces each and every new day.  We will still change our electrical outlets, buy a crib and carseat that meets safety regulations, not leave knives laying around on the floor... and all that other stuff that's probably in her best interest; our prayer, though, is that we can cling to the truth of God's sovereignty, knowing that we are just vessels of His protection for her and that she is ours on loan from the Father.  Praise Him for entrusting us with that responsibility, and we can ALL face uncertain days because He lives!