she's here!!

I have all these thoughts swirling in my head,

but no time to properly process,

or compose them here.

Since I am already at risk of being completely disowned by my family,

for failure to post in a timely manner,

I have to get something down 'on paper'.

So here goes.

Hadley's first bath

Our sweet little Hadley was snug as a bug in her mum's tummy

and had no desire to leave

of her own accord,

so Kacy was scheduled to be induced on Dec 9th.

Knowing that labor is reported to 

be more difficult when induced,

Kacy begged very nicely asked me 

to hop on an earlier flight than my Dec 11 ticket called for,

so I could be with her during labor and delivery.

Knowing that babies sometimes surprise their mommas,

I opted to wait until the last possible minute to change my flight,

concerned that I could spend a bunch of money to do so,

but still miss out on the blessed event.

Hadley's first nap with mama

This decision proved

 to
first of all, be unnecessary,

but it also provided me with a sort of false sense of security,

and allowed me to

- up until 11pm Monday night,
when I purchased a ticket for a flight the next morning -

continue to think that I was not leaving town until Friday the 11th,

and therefore still had plenty of time to accomplish all of the many things on my 

-before-I-go-to-California' list,

which led to much scrambling.

Nevertheless,

I made it to California with hours to spare

 before we all (Tony, Kacy, her mom, and me)

arrived at the Naval hospital to begin the induction process.

I say 'begin',

because, bless Kacy,

it was a long 

long

process

which lasted from 7:30 pm Tuesday the 8th

until Hadley (finally) arrived at 4:08 am on Thursday the 10th.

What happened in between those hours

is not my story to tell

(hopefully, Kacy will write that  post... hint hint ;-)

but I will say that Kacy was an absolute trooper

and I was so very proud of both her and Tony!

And I was so honored and grateful to be there

and play a small supporting role

in the story.

I got teary eyed on more than one occasion,

watching the two of them labor together

to bring this precious new person

into the world.

their first moment together, as a family of 3

~

not their first nap together ;-)

I so enjoyed my hours of holding Haldey each day

(and miss her terribly, now that I am back home!)

It was such a treat to be able to snuggle a baby

and not feel

even one time

that I really needed to be doing something else,

and should just.lay.the baby.down.

I was reminded

again and again

over the past few days,

just how much I loved every bit of caring for my babies

(even though every single one of them cried way way way more than Hadley...)

I spent my time in Cali

doing the best I could to love on 

and serve

all 3 of my sweet loves there,

all the while,

missing my entire gang back home.

~ 

Seeing that I left earlier than I'd anticipated leaving,

I never did finish all those things on my 'before I go' list,

and I didn't leave them as prepared

as I would have liked.

Rumor has it

(and evidence - once I got home - supports the rumor)

that Brandon was a total rock star,

holding down the fort here.

I had absolutely nothing to worry about.

(but still felt bad that I didn't leave them in better shape..)

~

My plane got in at 5:40 last night.

Knowing I hadn't had much sleep,

My Love (and the rest of the fam)

met me at the airport with a steaming hot cup of coffee - yum!

then we went straight

to the church

for our 242 group's Christmas party.

It was fun, even though I was completely exhausted.

I do love our people!

~

Oh! 

I almost forgot!

I took the train (a first!) from Oceanside to San Diego,

where I was supposed to find transportation to the airport.

When I got off the train,

I saw a row of buses

but couldn't make sense of the routes;

there was nothing that said 'take this bus to the airport'.

Taking a bus was out.

There were no taxis in sight,

even though there had been the Friday before, 

when Kacy's mom made the same trek,

so

 I set off walking.

I was a bit nervous petrified,

(I am a small town girl from Arkansas, you know...)

I soon came to an intersection 

and across the street, there were a few taxis.

whew!

I waited at the light for the sign that it was okay to cross,

wondering how, exactly, I was supposed to decide which taxi to take...

The sign to cross never appeared, so I moved closer to a lady that was also waiting to cross

(or so I thought)

and asked if she'd pushed the button.

It turns out she hadn't.

She wasn't waiting to cross;

she was waiting for a car to pick her up.

To take her to the airport.

And she invited me to join her!

I can't tell you how relieved I was!

This sweet lady took me under her wing.

She let me ride with her (for free!)

then once we got there,

told me where to go 

(I had checked in electronically - another first for me, 

so I was nervous about doing something wrong)

and also invited me to wait for my flight in the Admiral's Club with her

(a lovely, quiet spot in a sea of noise and rushing that is an international airport)

I had started out the morning

on very little sleep

(we'd stayed up irresponsibly late

 playing cards, 

trying to cram as much 'being together time' in as possible)

and I  was super nervous,

knowing that I had all kinds of little 'firsts'

that were waay out of my comfort zone,

and then

out of nowhere,

this angel lady appeared.

An hour or so later,

with a hug, 

we parted ways at gate 25.

And I wasn't nervous 

anymore.

~

I didn't really have the luxury of easing back into life today,

(Christmas is only 8 days away!)

but I took it anyways.

Life can get back to crazy 

tomorrow.