Presenting Ella Grace Nunley

Let's face it, I have not been great at blogging recently. My cute little Ella Grace is now 4 months old, but hey there's no time like the present to write about her birth so I can catch up and write about how cute she has been as she's grown. It's just a very good thing that I am at least caught up on each of my girls journals that I am keeping for them to have when they are older, that way I feel a little less guilty for not keeping up with the blog as well as I should be. Anyways....

Little Ella came on July 25th, 2012 at 2:34 p.m. and she was really pretty easy from the beginning, except that like her big sister, she did not want to come out! She was also a week late and didn't show any signs of coming so my Dr would not let me go any longer and scheduled me to be induced. I was really worrying about Kate and how she would handle the HUGE changes coming, so it was nice to be able to drop Kate off at my moms without rushing as it would've been that way had I gone into labor on my own. However, my personal feelings with induction are that I would really prefer not to do it, I love the excitement that comes with going into labor on my own as I did with Kate. Call me crazy, but I love that whole experience, contractions and all. So I was a little sad that I had to schedule it when I wanted so badly for it to start all by itself. Yet I liked that it had less shock on Kate, I was for sure packed and had everything packed for Kate without any stress, so it wasn't terrible. Bobby on the other hand, loved it this way. So after I got all checked in and induced we hung out while I went through the contractions for a while until they got pretty intense, I got the epidural when I was dilated to about a 5 and then they broke my water. They told me after my water broke that i'd have about 3 more hours or so until it was time to push. Once my epidural set in and I felt the warm and cozy relaxation set in from getting this wonderful med, we put on a movie so I could relax until....a little pain in my side began to get stronger. At first I didn't really think anything of it until it spread to my lower ab and got so much worse that I thought, great I'm going to be one of the stories where the epidural doesn't work. So as I was once again squeezing Bobby's hand to death and grinding my teeth I finally get the drs to come in and check me out. They figured the meds weren't working yet but didn't think to check me until we mentioned it. They were in the middle of explaining that it won't be much different there until they stopped and said "you're dilated to a 10! We need the Dr now!" I dilated from a 5 to a 10 in less than 40 minutes. So at 2:25 I started to push and literally less than 10 minutes and 5 pushes later, little baby girl came and she was totally healthy. They placed her in my arms and a gush of love came for this little girl. I love this whole experience and holding her for the first time to feel that love for this little baby who's been inside me for the past 9 months. Ella was here and she was beautiful, with so much hair!

When Kate met her little sister it was love at first sight. I couldn't have been happier with her reaction, she loved her sister from the moment she saw her and would not leave her side as long as she possibly could. It was truly sweet to see the love between these two already.

There was some debate with her name for a few days, it was either going to be Elizabeth Grace and called Beth or Ella Grace. I first agreed to Elizabeth as Bobby had wanted that name and it really was a beautiful name. But then Ella really kept ringing in the back of my mind for her and I tried to just push it aside. Then we got home and Bobby told Kate her sisters name was Beth and Kate said "no dad, it's baby Ella" and for days we tried to get her to say Beth but she wouldn't, so that got us to thinking that maybe her name should be Ella as I was kind of feeling it too. So her name is Ella Grace Nunley, and we love her so much!!!!