Rays of Sunshine: Scarlett Lily Myers

Garrett and I are proud to finally introduce you (on our blog) to Scarlett Lily Myers, our sweet baby girl and little sister of our beautiful girl, Grace Lynn.

©Ihnenfeld Photography

Scarlett was born on July 23rd, 2014 at 3:14pm. She weighed a whopping 8lbs, 8.2oz at 21.5in long... much larger than grace who was only 7lb, 1.3oz at 21in long. She, just like her sister did not come very easily though. At the very bottom of the blog, I have the story of her birth if you are interested in reading more about that. All in all, we are so very blessed with another healthy, beautiful, sweet girl. God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.

©Ihnenfeld Photography

I know I am terrible and have been slacking majorly at keeping this up-to-date. I will try to be much better and proficient when it comes to my blog. A lot has been going on since my last post, hence the lengthy read... my apologies.

I am now in my first week back to work, since being on maternity leave with the girls. It was such a blessing that Amanda Kay (Aunt Boo) made it home in time for the birth of her second niece and to be able to be here through my leave. She is now back to work unfortunately, but we get to see her often via skype and talking on the phone. Grace especially loved having her here and enjoyed spending a lot of quality time with her. We all love you Boo! This is also the first week that my mom, Nana, will be watching the girls. We like to call it NanaCare. It is so wonderful to have my mama as the girls' teacher, friend, role-model, Nana, etc. every day of the week, while Garrett and I are at work. She is so good too... she has set daily schedules which always include a variety of fun things. Grace loves going out to the library for "Story Time" and loves doing her daily crafts, devotionals, and outside time. What a blessing it is to have all of that. Thank you mama!!!

Crafts at NanaCare

Having fun at "Story Time"

Grace is also doing so well with Scarlett. That first couple days at the hospital she was perfectly fine with Scarlett, but was scared to get near me. I assume it is because she has never seen me like that, in a hospital gown, not moving too much or easily, and with tubes all attached. Once we got to our home though and I looked "normal" she was much more receptive and back to lovin' up on her mama :) She loves to help in anyway that she can. She likes to help us change Scarlett and put the blanket over Scarlett, give her the pacifier, etc. It is funny when Scarlett doesn't take the pacifier, Grace will look sad and come back to me and just say "she don't want it". Oh and let me tell you, Grace certainly isn't short of kisses. Scarlett gets a kiss or kisses multiple times through the day and always gets a goodnight kiss when Grace has to go to bed. Below are the weekly pictures from baby to this week (two months old now).

Her stats are as follows so far:

Birth

8lb 8.2oz
21.5" long

1 Month

12lb 14oz
23" long

2 Month

14lb 7oz
24" long

Yep, she is a big, healthy girl and we love every little piece of her :)

Grace recently received her first haircut at Walt Disney World. With her first haircut, she received her first set of ears and a certificate. She did wonderful and sat like a big girl for the entire thing! While at Disney, she also got to meet Daisy, Goofy, Donald, and her VERY FAVORITE Minnie. Minnie was the only one that she ran up to without us even asking her to. With the others she was a little more hesitant, but still did so great. There were several kids in front of us that screamed and cried and wanted nothing to do with the characters, but not our Grace. This trip was also Scarlett's first trip to the park and I gotta say, she did much better than expected... for a newborn and a fussy child, she was a trooper and we got to really enjoy the day.

Grace is still taking gymnastics with my friend Sheena. She absolutely loves Ms. Sheena and looks forward to every week like you wouldn't believe. She constantly wants to wear her gymnastics clothes and asks to go every day. We have to remind her that is is not yet gymnastics day and that ends up turning into gymnastics class with mommy at home. Yes, she likes to make me do the things that she is learning, haha. I'm not complaining though... I love that she is so excited about it and that she likes to keep me involved and teach me what she is learning.

Grace also completed two weeks of swim lessons while I was on maternity leave. Thank you Aunt Boo for helping her with those since I was unable to get into the water with her. Grace loves swimming with Amanda and enjoyed every lesson. She even got to swim with daddy at one lesson on his day off, with Papi once, and with Nana once. After all her lessons, it is safe to say that our child LOVES the water even more now. She especially loves to jump in.

Nana and Grace

Daddy and Grace

Aunt Boo and Grace

As far as learning skills goes... Grace now knows her ABC song pretty good and can count up to 20... crazy, right?! She is so smart!! She loves to read "Brown Bear" too and has it almost memorized. She will read that to us at least a couple times a week. She also is communicating much more in sentences and comprehends what we are saying a lot more. She says please, thank you, and sorry when appropriate and more often than not without us asking. Now, she does have those Myers stubborn genes ;) haha, jk. But really, she does like to play stubborn with us and we do have to try to nip that in the bud whenever she pulls it. She is pretty good most the time though and is always making us laugh. Just to give you an idea, here are a couple funny phrases of Grace from the last couple months:

Grace: Daddy go?
Me: Daddy went dancing (He went to cowboys for a friend's birthday)
Grace: Daddy shake the bootie? (haha)

Grace: I wanna watch princess
Daddy: Not until we get ready for bed
Grace: I wanna take bath (she knows after bath comes bed, haha)

This girl does have a sense of humor.

Scarlett is well Scarlett. She is starting to get a little personality of her own and LOVES eye contact right now. Her little grins and coos are the absolute best and put a smile on all of our faces. She is very strong too. She was already trying to hold her head up in the first week and can now hold it up all on her own. She is however a much fussier baby than Grace ever was. She will not easily take a pacifier and loves to suck on her hand. She also constantly wants to be held. I'm trying to look on the positive side and just remember there will be a time when I won't be able to snuggle up with her and hold her at any time. She also does not poop as regularly as Grace did, which apparently is normal for breastfed babies... I did not know that because Grace had no problem going #2. I learned that it is not uncommon for them to go once every 8 days, especially around this age as she is continuing to learn how to digest the milk and it is getting easier for her.

Smiling for us :)

Happy Girl

All in all though, we have two of the very best girls that we could ever have hoped for and we do not take any minute with them for granted. They are the lights to Garrett and I's world and we thank God for them each and every day!

There is no better friend than a sister and there is no better sister than you

Story of Scarlett's Arrival:

Tuesday evening, Garrett, my mom, and I headed to the hospital at about 11pm to go get in for my induction (scheduled for 12:30 that next morning). Once we got there, I was in a room and hooked up to pitocin by 1am and sitting back waiting for things to start rolling. After about 4 hours, my water broke (on it's own). And, when it broke, boy did it break!! It was nothing like when it broke for Grace's, which was not much more than a trickle it seemed. This was a full gush and I felt like it wouldn't end. After getting through that and feeling pretty good, I got comfortable in the bed until the contractions started getting worst. I had asked for an epidural as soon I got settled in at Winnie Palmer, but the nurse wanted me to be able to feel the contractions before getting one to make sure I really wanted one. I went along with her reasoning, knowing full-well in my head that I was still going to get the epidural. There was no convincing me otherwise. So, once I hit about 4cm, I finally got my epidural. Well... just my luck would have it, it would not lodge correctly and I could still feel my right side, They tried readjusting it, but that did not work. Ultimately, they had to take it out and redo the epidural all over again (no fun). Fortunately, it went in great and I was happy as a clam. The pain (after a little while) finally started to cease some and I could get some rest.

Fast forward some time to about noon time; my doctor had already showed up and I had reached 10cm... woohoo!! Time to start really pushing. Well, I pushed and pushed and pushed. Yep, you guessed it... no luck. Scarlett was OP (Occiput Posterior) just like Grace Lynn had been, This girl was stuck in my pelvis and going nowhere fast. At the time, we still were not exactly sure how big she was. So, now the decision was to turn off my epidural so I could really feel the contractions and get some good pushes in. I was for doing anything at this point to get her out. My doctor did what he could and we tried re-positioning and getting her to turn, but she was not budging. After about 2 hours of pushing, we still had no progress and I was in so much pain that my pushes were not beneficial at all. So, last ditch effort, it was decided to try the vacuum, which had been successful in delivering Grace. Unfortunately, Scarlett was just too big and the doctor said she would not make it through my pelvis bone. It was time for a c-section. Coming in, I was adamant on not getting a c-section, but after going through what myself and the baby just went through, I was 100% for it and ready to meet my girl.

At 3pm, I was now headed to the operating room and getting ready for a cesarean. While they prepped me and got me ready, Garrett had to be out of the room, which was so hard for me because I am there strapped down and I just wanted to have Garrett in there next to me. He was able to come in though once the surgery began. He stood by my side and we waited... right towards the end of it, I got sick and yep, threw up (on Garrett and on the anesthesiologist). The anesthesiologist was really good though and helped get us cleaned up and calmed down. My body had gone into like a shock and I started shaking really bad and my fever started to rise. Meanwhile, we hear the nurse say "come on baby girl". Did I mention that this was a surprise baby and we did not know what we were having... surprise now known, haha. We had our second girl! However, we still had not seen her because she was not crying. The nurse rushed her to the station and started sucking amniotic fluids out (Garrett could see all this, but all I could do was hear it). When Garrett saw this and realized what was going on, he got faint and had to be taken out of the room because he was passing out. As they were wheeling him out, we were so HAPPY to hear the sweetest cries ever!! Thank God!! Then they brought the baby over to me so I could hold her and meet her. Garrett did not get to meet her until a few minutes later when they took her out while I was getting all cleaned up because he was no longer in the room at that point. Below are some pictures the anesthesiologist took for us since Garrett had to leave and I obviously couldn't take any... so thankful for him there!! He was a big help for both Garrett and I and helped us to remain calm and cool through all the chaos.

Now, time for me to go into the recovery room. Because I had developed a strong fever and my body was still shaking, I had to stay there much longer than the normal 2hrs. And Scarlett had to go into the transition nursery and be put on antibiotics because of my fever as well. They of course do not want to risk her getting anything if she hadn't already gotten something. Garrett meanwhile split his time between Scarlett and I. After several hours, I was finally able to get wheeled to the transition nursery and see my girl again after 6+ hours of not seeing her. It was after 9pm at this point. I also got to finally see my family that was there, praying through it all. Thank you for being there and sticking it out with us Mom, Dad, Amanda, Favorite, and Aunt Kathy. Then finally off to our room we went for the first night. We ultimately were in the hospital from that Tuesday evening (22nd) until that following Saturday evening (26th). What an adventure all of that was. My girls both sure did have quite the arrival :)