A few more pictures from "birth-day"
courtesy of the midwives.
I have some pretty awesome midwives.
I would never ever go back to a regular ob/gyn.
Hard to believe, but this guy is one month old already!
It is just mind-boggling how fast the time goes.
Our new school year has begun. This is our 10th year homeschooling!
We started on 9/9 officially, though we schooled lightly through the summer right up until Ethan was born..then the kids got a short break.
I can hardly believe we have a high schooler already!!
2020 is certainly a different kind of year.
We are not doing any co-ops this Fall, unfortunately due to different restrictions and requirements.
I am actually pretty bummed about that as we had signed up for some pretty awesome classes, but it is what it is and in some senses it is actually a blessing.
Our 4-H club has called it quits for various reasons.
The library is still closed, though we can do curbside pickup at least.
Our new little guy isn't even two weeks old yet, so I also have not set a start date for our new year..
but even with all the restrictions and adjustments that have been made, we were able to sign up Grant for soccer. Bean is actually too old for the rec program at this point.
His first practice was the other night!
We now have two birthday's in August!!
Not quite up to the four in November, but they are only 8 days apart.
This guy turned 2!!
With grateful hearts and much thanksgiving, we announce the arrival of Ethan Francis.
Number eight (earthside) arrived August 20th at 5:31 in the morning.
Overall, this was an easy pregnancy, minimal sickness and I felt good throughout.
That is up until the last couple weeks. Given the arrival times of the last couple of babies, I fully expected to have this guy a bit earlier than he arrived, however, all is God's perfect timing.
I had been having contractions since the last week of July--but nothing ever progressed and time went on..and on..and on..
I will say I got a bit grumpy and anxious that no baby was coming. It literally felt like he was just going to stay inside for good. Irrational, I know. We passed the due date and still nothing. I ended up having to schedule some tests if he did not arrive by a certain time.
Well, again--in God's perfect time, I woke up sometime after 2am on Thursday, August 20th--an unseasonably cold August morning (it was in the 50's at that hour!)-- wondering if I was dreaming. I used the bathroom and went back to bed..or tried to at least. It was not a dream. The pain was real. BUT--I had been having contractions on and off for a couple weeks, so nothing to get excited about. I went to sit in the living room instead of laying back down. A couple trips to the bathroom and more contractions, and I decided to wake Mike up "just in case" around 3am. It has to be noted that he had very much been looking forward to a special workout at the gym that morning, so his plans were "ruined" in that regard. Contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart and I called the midwives around 3:30am. Mike got to setting up all the birth paraphenalia --
