Harper’s first photo shoot

Go to www.ebsphotography.com/slideshows/Jones to view the images from our photo session with Elizabeth!  If you’d like to order prints, click on the little cart icon and use the password b93f0391. 

Enjoy!

Harper and her family

A few pictures for your enjoyment…

Carson greets her baby sister with the most precious gift– Curious George band-aids.

Harper Caroline is here!

On January 3 at 12:56 pm, we welcomed into the world Harper Caroline, measuring up at 7 pounds 12 ounces and 19.75 inches long.  She has a little bit of light fuzz for hair but otherwise appears to us to look just like Carson, albeit with a bit of a smaller head.   We are all doing well.  Carson is very excited about being a big sister, but it’s definitely an adjustment in progress for all of us. 

I’m not sure how many of you care to know the details of Harper’s birth, but I will sum up (and if you don’t want to know you can skip this part): on January 2 at my regular office visit, Harper’s heart rate showed signs of dipping and not recovering.   I had fully expected that that day I would schedule an induction for the next week, then go home and continue piddling around with the various projects I had going on at the house.  Not so, as I was sent straight to the hospital to be induced.  The rest of the day was spent much as day 1 of Carson’s birth process was: sitting in the hospital bed unable to move around and hooked up to drugs I didn’t want.  I sobbed and, when we saw that Harper’s heart rate was just fine the rest of the day, begged the doctor to let me go home.  He would not.  That night no progress had been made, so the drugs were pulled and I ate a great dinner (Houston’s– mmm) and went to sleep.

The next morning we started again, and there was not much sign of progress by mid-morning, at which time I finally agreed to let the doctor break my water, recalling that with C things had started moving fairly quickly after that occurred.  Immediately I started having intense contractions with no space in between, and I got an epidural maybe around 11.  My heart rate plummeted, and I dozed in and out through an oxygen mask while nurses swarmed around and Shane paced the floor listening to the alarm going off over and over again.   Things eventually stabilized, and I was taking a nice nap when the doctor came in to check on things before he went to lunch, around 12:30.  He announced, to my great surprise, that it was time to have a baby.  I complained that I wanted to finish my nap (perhaps I knew it might be my last one for a while).  Instead, I pushed 4 times and Harper was here.  I can truly say that I did not feel a thing, and other than sitting in the hospital bed all day Friday, which was no fun, and the hour or so of intense labor I endured, the whole experience was wonderful.  Nurse Nadaene was so fabulous.  I wanted to take her with me over to recovery, where the nurses basically vacillate between leaving you for dead (i.e., making you call to ask for Motrin over and over again) and endlessly harassing you right when you’ve fallen asleep (someone please, please tell me why they can’t figure out how to check your vitals at the same times that they come in to check your body or belatedly give you Motrin, as it makes absolutely no sense that they do this separately).  The recovery room period was so awful that I was counting the seconds until we could go home.  Piedmont, which is otherwise a wonderful place, could really use some review of its recovery room processes and some training for its nurses on appropriate bedside manner.

Anyway, none of you are here to hear my ranting about the hospital– all you want is pictures and stories about little Harper.  As for the stories, she is a pretty easy baby most of the time, except for the period from around 9:30 pm to 1 am, during which she tends to scream non-stop.  This is hard, as I would really like to be asleep during that time.  I wonder if this is what people refer to as colic, and I hope it will get better.  Carson is a fabulous big sister– so sweet and gentle and full of love.  She is doing really well with the whole thing– I think we’re over-compensating a bit as we want to make sure she’s happy, but I’m sure that’s normal, right?  The pictures will come soon– we are having some technical difficulties but I will do my best.       

Happy New Year to all!!

Christmas Pictures

Here are a few pictures of Carson enjoying Christmas and all it brought– especially her dollhouse and tent.