I see you

Nothing new to report, except that I have the happiest and sweetest baby ever! I just thought this was a funny picture.

Happy One Week Birthday, Bennett

I cannot believe that it has only been a week since Bennett was born. I feel as if I have known her forever. She has had a very busy week with lots of friends and family visiting her. We sadly saw Mamaw and Grandaddy off today and are anxiously awaiting a visit from the Texas Websters. It's so amazing how I can love so many things about a newborn. You wouldn't think that they would do much besides eat and sleep, but Bennett already has such a funny personality. Whenever she opens her mouth and I put in a pacifier, she gets a horrible look on her face that says, "You did not just put this rubber thing in my mouth when I was expecting food." She also has this quirky was of shaking her head violently when she doesn't like the way you swaddled her. There are so many things I love about her that I will gush privately about in my journal instead of in an open forum, but all I can say is that I am truly happy and content and find it hard to see how life can get much better than this. Below are a few pictures of Bennett getting to know her family members.


I love my aunt, uncle, and cousins! I know that we are going to have so many fun times together. We are already planning my first trips to Disney World and New York City!


My Aunt Laura and my Mommy sure do look alike. I love to hear her laugh.


My Mommy tells me that my Nana is a very special lady. I can't wait to get to know her better. If she is half as wonderful as my Mommy tells me, then I know I will love her so much.


Grandaddy and Mamaw came a long way to see me. I was so glad that they were here when I was born. I miss rocking with Mamaw already.


This is the first of many trips to the park with Daddy Suttle. I hope he teaches me how to climb on the monkey bars one day.


Mommy Suttle is holding me while my cousins Elliot and Wyatt look on. Pretty soon I will have a new cousin to play with.


Maybe one day my Uncle Eddie will teach me to play the piano. I hear that he's very good.


And finally, one more with my Mommy and Daddy. I like this one because my eyes are actually open. I was probably scared that a golden lab was bounding towards me.

Family picture

We have had the best weekend! My family came from Birmingham and Rob's family came from West Virginia and DC to be with us and little Bennett. More pics to come soon, but we are currently sorting through the 8000 photos that Rob and his sister Laura took with their dueling fancy shmancy cameras. Bennett had her first photo shoot today complete with drop cloths and everything, so as soon as we can get the best ones, I will post them. She handled it like a pro though until she finally asked us to stop- hence the second picture.

She's here

Caroline Bennett Webster was born on February 26th, 2008 at 3:38pm. She weighed 6lbs 7oz and was 18 3/4 inches long. It's really hard to tell what her hair color is, but strawberry blonde is about the best we can tell at this point. She is an incredibly sweet baby and hardly cries at all. She really only cries when she isn't swaddled, but our friend Anthony says that's because she's just modest. We are so incredibly happy and words really can't describe how we feel.

We're on our Way

We are heading to the hospital in about 4 hours. We took this picture yesterday in the nursery. I really don't think I could get much bigger, so thankfully the time has arrived. Beyond the obvious joy of bringing Bennett home, I am looking forward to being able to SLEEP without acid reflux or the feeling of having a ten pound weight on my chest. I know, I know.... you all scoff out there and chuckle to yourselves over poor naive Lauren who has no idea what a lack of sleep looks like. Let me clarify. I know I will be up every 2-3 hours with Bennett for the first few weeks. However, what I am hoping is that I will get 2-3 hours of deep sleep. As it is now, I get about 20 minute increments, and if I am very lucky, I can go 45 minutes without waking up.

So, anyway, it is time. We are so ready. Rob and I had a very long prayer time last night and we ask for your prayers over the next week or so. We pray that the blood clot won't cause any problems, we pray for wonderful times with family and friends, and we mainly pray for a healthy baby girl. We can't wait to see her and find out if two recessive genes cancel each other out. People don't believe me, but I honestly think she might be a brunette. :-)

A Fun "Shower"

So, how many of you can say that you had your wedding reception in a hail storm and your baby shower in a tornado? I can! I love this picture of me and Kim because she was called into the studio to report on tornado damage about 1 hour after this pic was taken. And if you look in the background you can see the severe weather alert on the TV. Yes, in the middle of my baby shower, we were hit with a tornado. It was actually very interesting opening little bibs and onesies with tornado sirens going off. We had a great time though and it meant so much to me that so many wonderful friends didn't care about life threatening drives on stormy roads and spent their afternoon with me. I felt very loved and blessed. 3 days and counting!! Oh, and they are predicting storms on Tuesday. Of course.

The Ramblings of a Third Trimester Insomniac

You know how everyone tells you to sleep as much as you can before the baby is born? I wish I could count how many times I have heard that I need to take naps now, rest now, sleep while I can.... Well, I'm trying, but it sure isn't working. My nights usually go something like this-

11:00 Bedtime
11:20 Bathroom trip
11:45 Bathroom Trip
12:15 Bathroom trip
1:00 Rob comes to bed
1:05 Oh no.... Rob woke me up and even though I don't have to go to the bathroom, I MUST GO!!
1:15 I'm still awake and everyone tells me I need to be sleeping. Is Rob wearing a breathe right strip?
1:20 Even though I don't have to go, maybe going to the bathroom will help me go back to sleep
1:30 Is everything ready for Bennett? I am so nervous. Why in the world did I get pregnant? I really want to reconsider this.
1:45 Hmmm... sleeping on my side hurts. And I have acid reflux. I think I'll go gag now.
1:55 That didn't help, but I appreciate Rob getting up and giving me water. I'll get up and play Spider Solitaire until I have blurred my vision so badly that I am kocked out.
3:15 I'm still playing spider solitaire and it's not working. I wonder what the Tivo recorded today?
4:00 Crap! I'm still up and I know I need to sleep. That was a very funny Colbert Report though. Where are the drugs that are safe for the baby?
4:15 Drugs taken. What if Bennett comes tomorrow? I'm not ready. I'll never be ready. What am I doing?
4:30 Great episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8. I'm glad I am only having one.
4:45 One last bathroom trip and I can sleep. Ah, yes... I am sleepy....good night.
5:00 Bathroom Trip
5:45 Bathroom trip. Look at clock. Wow! I got 45 minutes of sleep. Cool.
6:15 It still hurts to sleep on my side, but that's where I keep ending up. Oh, no! The alarm is going off in 30 minutes. How can I work like this? Must sleep... shouldn't those drugs work better than this? I am seriously considering writing a letter to.... someone.
6:30 Still awake. Why am I having a baby in a week? I can't remember to feed my dogs! What if I forget to feed her? What am I doing?
6:40 Bathroom trip.
6:45 Alarm goes off. Must get up for work. I hope my boss understands when I pass out at my desk.

The sad part about this blog is that I am not exaggerating too much. I am posting this blog at 2:15 (even though the time stamp says midnight. It's not. Trust me.) So anyway, I will get back to Spider Solitaire now. I wonder if Colbert will be funny tonight?

A Fun Surprise

So, I thought it was another taping day on Tuesday, but the kids surprised me with a party for little Bennett. I am usually hard to surprise, but they did it. The best part of having so many awesome kids in my life? An endless supply of babysitters.

I have decided that I will never ever compare my pregnancy to another womans unless specifically asked. Maybe it's because I'm nine months pregnant and cranky, but if someone asks me how I am and I say that I am tired, I want some stinkin' sympathy. I don't want to hear that I couldn't possibly be nearly as tired as they were on their sixth child because they had five other kids to take care of. Or that I don't know what tired even is because their cousin-in-law just had sextuplets and that's some tired stuff. Or that I have no idea what being tired is because when they were pregnant, they were working 80 hour work weeks while running marathons and tending to the elderly just up until two hours before they delivered. Sigh.....

I have learned that every single pregnancy is different. And even though I am not carrying multiples, even though I am not caring for six other children, and even though I am not running marathons, dangit- I'm just tired. Maybe I'll get off the computer and go to bed.

3 weeks and counting!!

Okay, so we are ridiculously blessed. We cannot thank everyone enough who has blessed us with so many beautiful things for little Bennett. This is one spoiled chick and we couldn't feel more overwhelmed. This is a picture of Rob checking out the goodies Bennett got at her shower today.

On the health front- all is back to normal. I was told I would be in pain until the baby was born and that going back to work wasn't really an option, but I have been back full time for 3 weeks and am able to do everything I did before that dreaded day in December. I know I am only this strong though because so many people have been praying for me. I know now more than ever that prayer works and we will need as many of them as possible to get her here safely without any complications- in only 24days!! But who's counting?

It's the small things......

Not being able to walk can really change your perspective on things. I have a constant dialogue with God every day and I usually am so thankful when a taping of my kids show goes well, or if a Sunday morning worship service goes well technically. Now, I give God all the praise when I make it to my bed without too much pain and my book is open to the right page. That goes a long way with me these days.

As of last Thursday, the clot in my leg was still causing 100% blockage. The good news was that it hadn't spread, but there was zero blood flow to my leg- 2 weeks after the original diagnosis. I am pretty frustrated. I didn't think I would be able to run a marathon by now, but I thought that surely I would be able to get myself a cup of coffee. We just keep praying that the blood thinners will start working and that I will be able to ease back into normal life as soon as possible.

We had a wonderful Christmas. My family changed their entire plans and brought Christmas to me. My amazing sister packed up food, plates, gifts, clothes, and everything else in a moment's notice and came to my house. They left a note for Santa saying, "Dear Santa. We are at our Aunt LaLa's and Uncle Rob's in Montgomery. Please find us there." And he did. Santa is the best!! It was loud, crazy, messy, and absolutely perfect. I couldn't do anything but lay on the couch, but it was one of the best Christmases I have ever had, and it made me realize even more how important family is. The above picture was taken with my entire family on my Mom's side. We got together to celebrate with our beautiful Grandmom/Nana who is seated in the middle.

Blessed

I wanted to write a quick note and thank those of you who have been praying for me this week and to update everyone on what has been going on. A week ago tonight I started experiencing severe pain in my leg. Chalking it up to another pregnancy mystery I tried to sleep it off. Throughout the night my leg began to hurt worse and I was not able to sleep. By dawn, my leg was painfully swollen and was beginning to turn purple. Rob had left for church before it had gotten too bad, so my Mom drove me to the hospital. To make a long story short, it turns out that I had a deep vein thrombosis, which is another word for a blot clot deep down in a vein. The doctors immediately knew that this was not a good situation, but fortunately they spared me the knowledge of how severe it was. I spent 5 days in the hospital and was able to come home on Thursday where I am currently on bed rest until further notice. I am still in more pain than I have ever been in, but honestly, I feel so lucky to be here.

Rob and I did not find out until later that DVT can spread to the lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism. We knew the doctors were very concerned and wouldn't let me move at all for 48 hours, but we didn't know how real the danger was until it had passed. In researching DVT, we discovered that more people die from a pulmonary embolism each year than breast cancer and AIDS combined.

I feel for certain that this blood clot would have manifested at some point in my life, and we are so thankful that it was just in my leg instead of in my lungs or in my brain. I will probably be on blood thinners for the rest of my life, but the chance of my ever having a clot again has decreased significantly. I can't help but feel that this clot coming at this time somehow saved me from something far worse later on.

I want to thank everyone so much for all of the calls, e-mails, flowers, and gifts. It has been absolutely overwhelming. One day in the hospital, after they brought more flowers in, I just started to cry. I felt so loved and cared for and I cannot tell you how much that has meant. Rob and I have been in disbelief at how amazing our support system has been and I have never felt more prayed over than I have this past week.

I do ask for continued prayers as I heal and try to begin walking again. I really don't have a time frame as to when that will be. Right now, I can hobble around in 10 minute increments before I am done, but we are hopeful that I will get stronger every day. Please pray for Rob as he tries to do everything that I cannot while still working and keeping the house running. He has been amazing every step of the way and I don't know what I would have done without him or my parents who have filled in when he was unable to be with me.

The most wonderful news of all is that little Bennett is perfectly fine. She is kicking more than ever and none of this has seemed to affect her in the least. Another prayer is that I will be 100% by the time she is born so I will be able to take her on walks and hold her as if nothing had ever happened.

Thank you again for being the hands and feet of Christ and showing us what true unselfish love looks like. We pray you have a Merry Christmas. We know that we will.

Why you won't be receiving a Christmas card from us

We tried. We really tried. We were all dressed up after a nice Christmas party and thought, "Hey, maybe we should try and do a Christmas card this year." So, after Rob spent an hour setting up his camera to make sure everything was right, I wasn't really in the mood anymore. Anyone who has been around my husband taking pictures knows what I am talking about. But, I trotted over to the Christmas tree, called the dogs over, and the following were the results. Hence, no Christmas cards this year unless we get really crazy and try again this weekend.

Meg, SIT!!

Seriously, SIT!

Never Mind.