one month old...

...and her eyes are still blue. hoping beyond hope that they stay that way!!

john and i always used to joke that we'd just keep having kids until we got one with colored eyes. though i have blue (ish) eyes, john's are very, very brown and so are the rest of his immediate family's. our hopes were not high on having a child with colored eyes. however, naomi's are still clear and blue...both elijah's and lucy's clouded and turned brown within the first few weeks after birth. we're keeping our fingers crossed that naomi's stay the exact shade that they are now!

naomi grace: an introduction.

(eta: this was supposed to post on the seventh...not sure why it didn't. maybe i forgot to press "post". wouldn't be the first time...)

it's the evening of november seventh.
two days after my "official" due date...
and my arms are filled with the sweet mingling scent of newborn.
she is already ten days old.
it's unbelievable to my brain that she has been here for ten days...
already.
never once while carrying this tiny being did i imagine that she would be an october baby.
i had my sights set on this day.
this november day.
this was the day i was working towards these past nine months.
it's only natural that i would expect her to be late considering the tardiness of her brother and sister. elijah was ten days late...lucy, five. so when my labor started late tuesday afternoon (only light contractions, i honestly couldn't tell if they were braxton hicks or gas bubbles), i was in complete denial. it was only after they didn't go away and gradually increased in intensity that i started to think that maybe...just maybe this little one was going to be early.
i was in no way prepared for her arrival.
i hadn't packed my bag for the hospital...
i hadn't bought diapers.
i hadn't even picked out a coming home outfit...
i was positive i still had two weeks to go.
but...she had different plans.
around dinner time on wednesday evening, my contractions were starting to get to the point where i had to stop what i was doing and really concentrate on something else. but they weren't very frequent and i was still able to handle them without much trouble. john and i made it through bath time, put the kids to bed and then i looked at him and said, "well...guess i better get my bag packed".
we started timing the contractions at that point (it was around nine o'clock) and i text messaged my brothers and sisters-in-law to let them know they were probably going to be uncles and aunts again sometime in the next 24 hours. i labored at home with john at my side (he was AMAZING, by the way) until about one in the morning when john called his mom to have her come stay with the kids.
we left for the hospital around one thirty.
i was strangely enough able to relax on the drive over there so once we got to the parking lot at the hospital, we just stayed in the truck for a while.
about two thirty though, i sat straight up and told john, "we've got to get in there, now".
we got into a labor and delivery room where i paced until the nurse was able to check me.
i was petrified i would only be dilated to a three (which was where i was at at my appointment on tuesday)...but i had already progressed to an eight.
thankful tears spilled down my cheeks as i told john, "we can do this".
a completely different tone and attitude from my previous two labors; they were filled with discouragement and doubts.
my ob/gyn showed up minutes after he was called (he must live right next to the hospital) and he broke my water.
at that point, i was dilated to a nine and was able to start pushing just a few contractions later.
three reallyREALLY hard pushes and our beautiful baby girl was born at 3.21am.
since we were completely unprepared for her early entrance to the world, we still hadn't picked out a girl's name...so she went without one until the next afternoon.
after debating back and forth for a bit, we decided on naomi grace.
naomi has several meanings: beautiful, pleasant and my joy and my delight.
the meaning of grace is pretty obvious but here it is anyway: favor or good will, the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God. (there are other meanings but these are our favorites) 
already, this little girl i'm holding in my arms personifies all those definitions and more. she is so sweet and tiny (as cliched as that sounds, it's completely true)...
and compared to her brother and sister, she is soso quiet!
she rarely voices her discontent unless her diaper is being changed when she'd rather be eating.
a good little sleeper, she prefers to cuddle in someone's arms but sleeps just fine by herself in her little bassinet at the foot of our bed.
i am so thankful that she figured out nursing quickly and hasn't had many problems with it, except for her tendency to fall asleep before she's really and truly finished (unlike her sister who had trouble throughout her first two months of life).
she is the perfect compliment to our family...and i can't wait to watch her personality develop.
and because a blog post isn't a blog post (especially one about a baby) without pictures, here's a "few" that i've taken so far...