Joanna Cait Arrives

The picture above was taken on 4/8/14 and early the next morning 4/9/14 at 2:59am Joanna Cait Lail was born at the Alaska Family Health and Birth Center. Joanna made a quick entrance into this world. Zac and I had been reading Supernatural Childbirth by Jackie Mize and were praying and believing for a quick, easy, and pain free delivery. I got everything but the pain free part ;) but even that was short lived and WAY more tolerable then Avery's delivery. 

I started having contractions around 10:30pm on Tuesday night that were about 10-12 mins apart. No big deal, we thought surely she would wait until the next day since my parents were flying in from NC at 7am in the morning. WELL my contractions quickly progressed from 10 mins apart, to 5 mins, to 2 mins, to 1 1/2 mins apart. At 12:30am we starting scrambling and decided we had better call someone to come over to be with Avery or else we were gonna have this baby at home. We finally got a hold of a friend around 1am. After getting pulled over and telling the cop "I have got to GO, my friend is having a baby" he let her go and she made it to our house about 1:30am. Zac and I were already in the car and we pulled out as soon as we saw her headlights. We arrived at the birth center about 1:50am, and I asked them to start running the water in the birthing tub and to check to see how dilated I was. I was 8cm and fully effaced...she was coming soon. We turned on some worship music, and I got in the tub while Zac did an amazing job of massaging my back during contractions. At about 2:50am I got up to go to the bath room and my water broke and my body decided to push. I told Zac to go get the mid-wife because I could feel her head. They directed me back to the tub, I gave 3 or 4 pushes and there was my sweet baby girl in my arms at 2:59am. I have to say water birth is the way to go in my book!

Zac was really concerned about leaving Avery so we asked when the soonest we could leave was and they looked at us kinda strange and said they needed to keep us a minimum of 3 hours. So at 6am we pulled out of the birth center, stopped and got breakfast and were back home at 6:30am to tell Avey good morning :) Our friend was a little shocked to see us walk back in the door that early but we were glad to be home!

Here are a few sweet pictures of Joanna's first few days of life

Family of Four

It seems we are WELL on our way to being a family of FOUR! Roughly 5 weeks left until we meet our sweet baby GIRL...eeeek. I don't know if it is because I am 3 years older, or because I am having a girl, but this pregnancy has definitely been different...harder. Not hard by any stretch of the imagination, just harder then being pregnant with Avery. I felt like my pregnancy with him was such a breeze. Of course I didn't have a two year old running laps around me then. I have most definitely felt more tired this go around. I think a big part of that also has to do with not being able to exercise quite as much. Oh I am on my feet walking pretty much all day at work, but purposeful exercise has pretty much gone out the window. The only thing I want to do when I get off work is see my handsome little man, leaving little time for exercise.

So, as you will see in the pictures below we have decided to name our sweet little bundle Joanna Cait Lail. The biblical meaning of Joanna is Grace, or Gift from God, and the meaning of Cait is Pure. It will certainly be a change having a little girl around the house, for Avery is ALL boy. It never really mattered to me what Avery wore, but I can't wait to put cute outfits on our little girl. 

Avery is still not quite sure what to think, and of course the reality that he will have a baby sister will certainly not set in until we bring her home from the birthing center. Oh yes, did I mention I am not giving birth at the hospital??? For some reason I just have this thing about delivering where I work...strange I know. There is a lovely birthing center here in Fairbanks and I am really excited about giving birth there...Ok, so I'm not super excited about the giving birth part, but at least the place I will be giving birth is beautiful and homey. In fact the closer the time comes, the more I think...WHAT HAVE I DONE!  

Hope you enjoy the photos! 

We are still ALIVE

The Lail's are STILL alive! We kinda fell off the grid for a little while...we did move to Alaska which pretty much puts us off the grid, BUT we are alive and kicking. For some reason every time I went to post on the blog, the website would crash, so I just sort of gave up on it. Now after months of time off I thought it was time to give it another try. We have been loving the last few weeks. Usually by this time in Fairbanks it is cold and snow has already set it. Luckliy for us the temperature has stayed relatively warm and the snow has not claimed its ground yet. Here are a couple of great shots of Avery and his best pal Woody. Although it looks like Woody gets quite a bit of abuse he is deeply loved and taken absolutely everywhere (even to the potty).