Emily's story

Emily is telling everyone that she is #4!

She slept well during the day, but boy was she a night owl!

These photos came up backwards, this one is from the hospital

Happy 5th birthday to our dear Emily!  I know I am repetitive, but I always think Emily should be older than she really is, as she has gone thru more medical junk than most people at least 6 times her age.  And we want her to stay young, for her, age is not friendly.  But nothing sad today, today we celebrate God's goodness in Emily's life, God's provision in every way.  We love our Emily, she is a girl with gusto.  Emily goes all out, and always has (last night she was upset about turning 5, she wanted to stay 4).  Emily has emotions bigger than her tiny frame, and she loves with all her heart.  She is loud, but she is also a sweet friend and a caring sister.  We are so thankful to have her in our family, her energy and antics keep us laughing.

And now to Emily's birth story, though her's is not as exciting as the girls (and we are of course out of birth order).  I never planned on having a big family, but I loved having kids everywhere (I actually like the chaos), keeping me busy, and gosh, they are just so darn cute, so we kept going.  On Christmas Eve 2006 I gave Justin a present of a doll house baby to tell him we were expecting baby #4.  Very early on we knew Emily's planned birth date.  Our doctor only did scheduled c-sections on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Emily was due on August 23rd, so it worked out that the Tuesday the week before was August 14th.  My pregnancy was pretty uneventful, I was more tired than before, but nothing exciting ever came up.  I did, in my deepest inner self, have an idea that something was not right.  I already had 3 healthy children, so what was the likelihood of having a 4th?  I actually gained the most weight with Emily, about 72 pounds!  And honestly, there were several times I didn't think I would make it to her birth date.  But we made it, and headed to the hospital before sunrise on a rainy morning.  I came close to passing out during the IV and somehow made it thru another spinal.  Back in the cold OR the doctor had quite a time getting Emily out.  She had not moved down at all so he had to use forceps and then the vacuum.  Finally, at 9:14am Emily Kate was born.  She was a petite 7 lbs. 2oz. and 20 1/2 inches long.  I was able to hold her as soon as I was stitched up and we had her in our room the whole time.  We immediately noticed the recessed chin and thought is was just a family trait.  She did struggle with eating, and though she and I went home on the same day, she came home with the Billy blanket to help with the jaundice.  She was content once we figured out that a bottle worked better, but she sure liked to stay up late into the evening.  Other than taking an hour to eat a bottle, Emily was a happy baby, easily fitting into our young family (Heidi and Anna had just turned 4, Luke was 2 1/2).  Justin was home on a work-related injury, which helped in caring for the older kids.  We so enjoyed being a family of 6, everyone had a buddy and we were happy.  Little did we know life was going to throw us a few more loops and turns, but as I look thru the last 5 years, God has always proved faithful, Emily is really an embodiment of it.  Thru many storms our family has increased in faith, together we are strong!  Our blog has almost come full circle, we started it when Emily's medical stuff began to get busy, when she was only 4 months old.  Emily has changed our life, changed each of us, but God put her with us for just that reason, to mold us into who He wants us to be, because without her we wouldn't have grown in the many ways we have.