Birth...and one year later....

Last Friday marked a milestone for our family as we celebrated our baby Girl's FIRST Birthday. I must tell you it was "bittersweet".
As the day approached, I found myself going over in my head, rehearsing all that happened the week prior to her arrival. I was taken back to the Above Rubies retreat that i had attended and got teary.
It was on the saturday session at the women's retreat that Nancy Cambpell  called all the women  who were carrying the Gift of Life to the front of the meeting room. There was a large number of us and Nancy Campbell asked the crowd to come around us and pray for our Unborn Blessings. Then Nancy walked through and layed hands on each of our protruding pregnant bellies and prayed many things upon the lives of our Unborn children. The word "POWERFUL" does not even begin to describe what was felt by us women (we all chatted later) I was so incredibly blessed by this as I felt my Little one kick from the inside out. It was an amazing moment and I cherish it to this day. I remember Nancy Campbell's words over my womb as she spoke specific words into the spirit of my unborn and wrote them in my pregnancy journal. It was soo awesome!!!  If anyone is familiar with Above Rubies and Nancy's ministry you probrably understand why it was so amazing to be blessed by her! I have gleaned and learned so much from this Great Woman of God and she has impacted my life in so many ways that only eternity will tell!
After the retreat I felt very ready to have our little one, and that night it seemed I was starting  to go into Labour!!!....after a long night..it subsided and false labour kept creeping up for the next few days.
It was on May14 that I was going about my nesting urges and getting everything perfectly ready  that things really progressed. I remember we were bringing our oldest daughter to her Annie Play practice and as I walked down the hall to bring her to the auditorium, I doubled over with a long INTENSE contraction...I couldn't move and I KNEW this was it!! I quickly got her to her practice, got home while hubby made dinner for the children, bathed them and put a quick movie on for them, only to rejoin me up in our bedroom to help me breathe through the contractions.

After putting the children to bed, and calling our midwives, labour went very fast and at 10:30, I wanted to be ALONE in the bathroom for awhile. My hubby (who knows me VERY well to know that this means baby is coming SOON) brought me back to the bedroom where soft music was playing, and candles we had lit earlier were still burning. It was such a cozy warm feeling to retreat into our room and gently go through those last stages of hard labour. After the children were awakened from their slumber (as prearranged/planned with all the children) they all hopped onto our big bed and waited, prayed and cheered their mommy on.

Moments later, I delivered our little Miracle into her Daddy's hands and he brought her up to my chest. The children all sighed and  and clapped and were in absolute awe as we brought our baby up to the level of the bed so they could see their first glimpse of their newly birthed sibling. IT was soo Incredible for all of us. It was awhile later that we looked to see if we had a baby boy or girl. I was surprised but so happy we had a GIRL!!! (I bought tons of PINK LOVELIES this pregancy...)
We had her name picked out and Daddy said "Here is HANNAH AMELIA SHILOH"
The midwives were amazing (as they always are) and left the room for us to bond.
That is a night forever etched into my memory, along with the other births of our children.

Fast forward to a year later, and here we are about to celebrate Hannah's 1st Birthday!!
How time flies. This year our Hannah has blessed our lives in soo many ways. I can't imagine our family without her. The children simply adore and dote on her and sometimes there are squabbles as to WHO gets to hold her first in the mornings.

She is such a sweet natured baby and loves to be carried by everyone. She is very attached to me and sometimes still cries when I step into the shower! ha!..She is an absolute DELIGHT to anyone who meets her. Her SMILE is so adorable and she knows it.  She takes her time to sit, crawl and even walk...which we are completely okay with...I think we are really savoring her babyhood!

This is a picture of me with Hannah in our MobyWrap and our Incredible MIDWIVES Audrey and Kathy!

She had a nice quiet family birthday, nothing to big, simple but fun. I still cant believe our Baby is 1!! Thank you God for her LIFE!!

It is TRADITION that we usually do Carrot Cake for Baby's 1st Birthday..but this is the one time it was an Ice Cream Cake. Daddy decided he wanted to see the look of Hannah's face with this type more than a carrot cake...and i was perfectly fine to oblige with that...

Happy 1st Birthday

HANNAH AMELIA SHILOH DUNN

We Love You!!!