Right before Christmas Ellia did some little smiles, and she likes to kick and play under things that move. Ellery adores her, and really Ellery must be sort of pestering her at times. These are fairly uneventful videos, but I want to capture and remember the way she moves around and the little sounds and faces of a baby!

Christmas 2010--Here are some of the pictures we snapped over Christmas in Kentucky. Ellia has just begun making her first smiles, and we tried to capture those. You will see we also captured her sleeping with Noni and being fed by Noni and Tia Kate. We also enjoyed our visit with the Kalanys, and they enjoyed holding her. Last night she went about 10 1/2 hours at night without eating, so maybe a full night's sleep will be a late Christmas present to mommy.

Who does Ellia look like? This bottom picture was taken on December 11th, and in this picture she looks like Elan. He used to sleep just like this! The other pictures are with Ellery. Maybe Ellia looks like her too. It is still early to tell, but it is apparent that Ellery adores her little baby sister!

We probably don't need this many of these pictures, but daddy got carried away. We wanted to document how Ellia sleeps like Elan did when he was a baby. If you look back at his blog, you will find his arms over his head like this. Quite funny!

A few hospital videos from Ellia's birth. The first is just her looking around. The other two show how Ellery does not want Elan to touch the baby. She wants to be the mama I guess!

First bath, proud sister, and big hands! Ellia's umbilical cord fell off last week so she got her first bath. She didn't cry at all and seemed to find the water calming. Ellery is such a proud sister and loves to "hold" the baby whenever we let her. We also wanted to show how little Ellia is in the big hands of daddy!

Did not get these posted, but they go with the last post. Lito did bottle duty too!

Visit from Noni and Lito--during this second week of her life, Ellia has been bonding with her grandparents. They have fed her her first bottles, and although not as fast as breastfeeding, at least she is taking them so far. Noni and Lito are proud of her, and she has enjoyed their attention.

Ellia will be two weeks old tomorrow, but most of these have been taken during her first week of life. You can see her siblings (especially Ellery) are super proud of her. She has some moments of being very alert and wide-eyed, and plenty of sleepy moments!

Lots of pictures and all out of order--the way blogger seems to load them.

Ellia Carya McClain

Dee and Pop come visit

proud sister Ellery

proud brother Elan

can't get a full family to look at the camera and smile

proud cousin Clara

thanks Dr Bradshaw

19 inches long

7 lbs 3.3 oz

Ellia's birth story...

We began expecting Ellia around week 35 since the other two children were born at 36 weeks and 36 weeks and 5 days. I had contractions beginning week 35 and had hopes of waiting at leaast another week for her to arrive. I assumed she would weigh around 6 lbs 5 oz since the other two were born weighing exactly the same thing. Contractions again at week 36 but still nothing progressing enough. Right after 36 weeks the doctor checked me and said that I was dilated 3 cm and to be sure to go to the hospital if the contractions were 10 minutes apart or less. He said she was low and would probably come quickly. At 37 weeks he checked me again and said I was dilated 4 cm and almost totally effaced. I felt bad throughout those last couple weeks with contractions coming occasionally, lack of sleep, needing to use the bathroom often, etc. We expected the baby every day but nothing...with fear of delivering in the car or not making it to the hospital in time for an epidural, the doctor offered me the option of coming in on Thursday night and delivering Friday morning (the day I was 38 weeks). Anthony and I both decided this would be best since we could make all final plans for the kids, and the doctor would give me the epidural before pitocin since I was so far along already. With all the kids settled, I headed to the hospital on Thursday night, November 4th. They didn't do anything that night except make it hard for me to sleep with an IV in one hand and a blood pressure cuff on the other arm. I slept about 2 hours that night total with a few contractions during the night. My nurse was Ashley Bowen, a family friend and youth who had been in my youth group at New Armuchee. That was a nice blessing for us! It was fun to be put in labor room number three since three is my favorite number!

I got the epidural at 5 AM, and they began pitocin at 6 AM to induce me. When Ashley got off at 7:15 AM, she came in to say goodbye. I asked her if anything was happening and she said the contractions were increasing. She didn't indicate that the baby might come really fast. A little after that I got another nurse who I knew indirectly from other friends. Her name was Amy Dempsey. She was really nice as well. Around 7:45 or 8 AM I wanted to turn on my side so Anthony helped roll me over. The nurse came in when the baby monitor went off, and she said that the baby didn't seem to like that side since the heart rate dropped. She checked me and said, "Oh my goodness I see hair--call the doctor--he is at home." Everyone went crazy setting up the room and getting ready and assuring me they could deliver if the doctor didn't make it. The joy of an epidural is that we were joking, talking, and I felt nothing! Dr Bradshaw did make it! They discovered my water had broken at some point but they didn't see a lot of fluid. I pushed about three times, and on the last push they told me to push hard. I did, and after the baby's head came out, a lot of fluid sprayed out around her shoulders! It sprayed everyone in the room and was rather funny. The doctor turned the baby so we could see boy or girl, and it was not immediately obvious since the umbilical cord was attached. Either Anthony or I said girl, and we were quite happy with our new baby Ellia. So Ellia was born at 8:15 AM on November 5th.

She weighed 7 lbs 3.3 oz, almost a pound more than her siblings at birth. She was 19 inches long. Her middle name is from the scientific name of a hickory tree since all the kids have names related to trees. Her middle name begins with "C" since the other two were "A" and then "B". Her first name is not in the top 1000 names for social security website for any of the last 100 years. I had a lot of requirements for the name so that it would be unique and follow the pattern we had made. But we have discovered Ellia is hard for many to say, and it is similar to Ellery. But we know she will be an individual.

In the end it was a good birth story even though I had felt in labor for two weeks with her. We came home Saturday night, November 6th.

She has been eating well, sleeping a lot like all newborns, and the other two are adapting to a new baby. Both seem to adore her, even Elan who really wanted a brother. Elan was disappointed he could not see "all the stuff on her" as he told me the afternoon I was to go to the hospital to have her that he wanted to be there so he could see all the stuff on her. I guess he had seen some pictures at the doctor's office of babies immediately after birth. We promised him some pictures!