Marlena Irene-Rose Flood has arrived

Marlena Irene-Rose Flood has finally joined our family.

She was born on April 10th at 4:24 a.m.

weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces and 20" tall

Only God himself knows how much we are in love with her right now. It is hard to for us to take in at times that she is really ours. We never thought we would have a child together and this is a dream come true. I don't know how many tears of joy we have cried since she was born. We still catch ourselves crying every day when we have one of those moments where all is quiet and we just stare at her. Adam reminded me the other day that this time last year we didn't even know I would be having a surgery to have the chance of getting pregnant, let alone having our daughter in our arms now. She is amazing and will just melt your heart when you look at her. Everything about her seems like it is a gift to us straight from the Lord's hands to our soul. We love our daughters; Afton and Alexandra more than we can express and our grandson Ryland has filled our home with his heart and beautiful smile and personality and now it just seems that Marley completes us. I know our family will grow through the years, but at this time in our life, we just savor every moment and I hope that we will always be able to reconnect to these feelings. It is an exciting time to just sit alone and talk about the future for ourselves, our THREE daughters and our grandson. I hope to take some time in the next few days to write about our labor and delivery and Marley's first week in the world. For now, it is time for another feeding and then some sleep (if Marley is willing). Thanks to everyone for all of your good wishes and support through the years and keeping faith that one day Adam and I would finally have our dreams come true.

Looking back while we are Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Today marks 5 days until Little Miss Marlena Irene-Rose Flood is due. We figure she will come any time between right now and the next 19 days. This has definately been a whirlwind pregnancy and we believe our baby has been given to us straight from God's hands. Adam and I have been together since 1996 and realized very soon that we were meant for each other and not too long after that we realized we would love to have a baby together and give Afton and Alexandra another sibling. Through the years, we have had many ups and downs with seeing doctors and being able to afford the the medical procedures to have a baby. I think we had pretty much come to the conclusion that it would never happen when it seems that almost overnight we found the ability and the doctor to give us a chance. Everything moved so fast. We found one opening a month after we decided to go for it and jumped at the chance. The surgery was scheduled on May 27th and we were pregnant on our first try in July. It was pretty surreal to go 13 years of only "hoping" to someday have a baby to being pregnant within 3 months of visiting the surgeon's office for the first time. We knew we only had roughly a 60% chance of getting pregnant and were fully prepared to go for fertility treatment 6 months after the surgery. Imagine our surprise 2 days after coming back from renewing our vows Jamaica and finding out Floodlette existed! It was meant to be. We had finally taken the vacation we always dreamed of and renewed our love for each other and recommitted to being together forever and this was our gift. We had a lot of fear and a lot of hope in our hearts and souls that the pregnancy would be blessed and the baby would be healthy. At that time we didn't know what the coming months would hold; me losing my job and a large chunk of income, Adam's crazy schedule with projects in law school and work, having our daughter and grandson move in with us... we were just in shock, full of reserved joy and hope. I think we held our breaths for the first trimester with all of the testing. We were told my hormone levels were low and the doctor didn't know if the pregnancy was viable. We went through 3 rounds of testing and finally my levels came up enough to perform an ultrasound. I can't describe the feelings of the first ultrasound and seeing that our baby was in the womb and she really existed, to the next ultrasound in a week when we saw her heartbeat, to the next seeing that she was healthy and low risk for most birth defects because of my age, to the next when we found out that we defied the odds of having another boy Flood and conceived a girl (there's hope), to the next where we were able to see her organs and her face and so far she has been nothing but healthy. Actually, she has been quite healthy and we are told that we are having a pretty big baby girl. The pregnancy has been tough on my body at times, but it has never been without total joy and love. There was morning sickness and evening sickness and in between sickness, there was many food aversions and gagging over smells and brushing my teeth (which Adam will miss, I'm sure), ligament pain, back outages, bed rest, pre-term labor, early labor, torn muscles, very long bouts of baby hiccups and more things I won't mention... but, through it all there was complete amazement and awe of the miracle growing inside of me; the little girl we never thought would happen for us. MIRF will be here any day now.... I think...

Finally Started a Blog

O.K., after being told a few times that we should start a blog, we have. It seems as though we have things going on all the time that we would like to share, but get sidetracked and forget. Maybe if we can just jot some notes in a blog on a regular basis we can keep everyone up to date outside of just Facebook. Believe it or not, there are still family and friends out there who refuse to participate with the social networking sites. We still love them though.

It seems as though I have Baby Marley and Baby Ryland on the brain these days and I don't leave much room for anything else. I think it is almost all that goes through my mind. I'm not saying that those are not wonderful thoughts to occupy my time, but I also have to remember how to write and speak in complete sentences when I talk to adults, which is much different than my typical baby sentences with a funny voice. I do seem to spend much of my day smiling and trying to get a response out of Ryland and singing folk songs, but I'm having fun. It is probably best considering my limited thought capabilities right now.

Ryland is doing amazing. He turns 8-weeks old this coming Thursday and I think he has finally started catching up on his weight. As a matter of fact, I think he is growing like a weed. Afton takes him back to his pediatrician on the 10th and we are excited to see his update. He really is an amazing little boy. I never thought he would bring as much joy and love to our family as he has. Adam and i like to call him "Baby Kryptonite" because it seems as though whatever we are doing he can make us stop in our tracks and just sit there and stare at him. He has learned to smile and is trying so hard to communicate with sounds. Afton is working now and I babysit him during the day and we have a great time together, but he totally loves it when his mommy comes walking in that door. It doesn't matter how tired or cranky he may get, his whole demeanor alters when she comes home. Next on that happy smiling list is his Grandpa Adam. They already have a special bond and can stare at each for amazing lengths of time. I can already see what a special relationship they will have through the years. Of course he loves his grandma too, but I'm sure he is ready for a change of pace/face by the end of the day.