8 weeks old

Time sure does fly by! Tosh is going back to work tomorrow. He has thoroughly enjoyed his time off and I'm so thankful that he had the time to take for us! I'm a bit stressed over work but have put it in God's hands and am doing the very best I can and to HIS glory - not mans!

The first picture was taken today - before I cut all of Tosh's hair off! She is 8 weeks 2 days old in that photo. She is so heavy now -- I feel like I understand Proverbs 31 when it talks about "strong arms". She gets her first shots this week at the Doctor on Thursday. I'm so worried and nervous about them. It's so amazing how much she changes as the days go by. She is starting to squeal and make all sorts of interesting sounds now. She smiles at us a lot and she loves to just kick and move her arms around. If she's held she only wants to be held upright, not lying down.

She's still not sleeping through the night but we are only doing about 2 feedings now... sometimes 3 depending on the night.

As for a house -- God is working. A neighbor down the road is looking to sell his and called saying that God had put it on his heart to see if we were interested. We'd talked to him once when we first moved back but nothing came of it. We went and looked at the house and it's the perfect size, quiet neighborhood, dead end road, and not too much yard (just enough). We are waiting to see how the Lord will work it all out. We are anxious to be on our own. I seem to have forgotten what all "stuff" I own since it's been packed up for so long. Enjoy the pictures!

New pictures!

Life is going OK. We are enjoying our time with Adriana.... I had my first day away from her yesterday! I had to work. And when I got home she didn't want to be with anyone else! It was really sweet.

She loves her bath time and she loves her Daddy! He is gone turkey hunting this week in Rockbridge County so all of you folks up there feel free to drop by the house or call him! He's in town!

At her last Doctor's appointment she weighed almost 10 lbs! I've had a bought with mastitis and some other unpleastant pain but am pressing through and still breast feeding. It's hard sometimes and I get frustrated but that's OK.

3 Weeks Old

The top picture is of her in the outfit her Aunt Corey bought her. It was so cute! Then we have a family picture of all of us. Yeah, I look kind of rough but hey -- I don't care! It's the most worthwhile lack of sleep time I've had. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Yesterday her umbilical cord finally fell off. Almost 3 weeks to the hour she was born! We had a rough night last night. We've been supplementing just a little every now and then with formula. We used the powdered formula last night and she was fussy all night. I almost think it caused her constipation or something. She squirmed and just was uncomfortable all night long. Our plan is for me to just keep pumping as much as I possibly can and maybe give her a supplemental breast milk bottle at night.

I'm looking forward to finally giving her a real bath in a tub! Yah! Another milestone -- it shouldn't go so quickly! I've technically only got three weeks left to be at home with her and I don't want to go back to work. Tosh has 5 more and he's going to love being with her some alone I think. That's all for now! Enjoy!

Time passes so quickly!

Taken yesterday afternoon -19 days old.

Her St. Patrick's Day outfit :-) Thanks SIS!

Proud Papa after an all nighter!

I wish I had more time to update this thing to keep people back in Lexington up to speed but it seems that sleep is one of my top priorities along with feeding Adriana. We are doing well -- it is very very tough having a newborn! SHESH! I mean, I don't know what I thought it was going to be like, but this wasn't it. Tosh is a great father and has helped me immensely. He has done such a wonderful job! I had no idea I'd married such a kind man.

It's also very good that my parents are helping us out. We have had several nights of "OK NOW WHAT DO WE DO?!" and my parents would step in and take her so we could get a couple hours of sleep and not lose it anymore. She is growing quickly and although she has her days and nights mixed up, she is such a sweet baby.

I've quickly learned how to change diapers and clothes. We've been pooped on an peed on and we've successfully made it to Dr.'s appt's and back on our own with her. Feeding her in the car is not easy. Her first major "outing" was this week. We went to Kingsport for my Dad's guitar lesson (mainly b/c I'm going stir-crazy in this house and just getting out a little for a drive is helpful!), and after that we went to Pratt's BBQ to eat. She did well until the end of the meal and she started screaming b/c she was hungry so I had to take her out to the van and feed her.

I am starting to get back on my feet. My incision was checked yesterday and although I am definitely recovering slowly, I am recovering. I thank God for the blessings and not the burdens right now. It's hard to focus on the good when you're exhuasted. I didn't know what exhuastion was until now. And yet, I somehow find I have the strength to get up and feed her again, even though she just ate two hours ago. She slept for 5 hours last night -- first time since she's been home. She'd been staying awake all night long and sleeping all day. We started yesterday trying to wake her up (wiping her face with a wet wash cloth) and keep her awake to see if she'd sleep, and sure enough, she did. Of course, it hurts really badly when she goes 5 hours without eating!!! I have to pump or wake her up to feed her. Ah the joys of motherhood. But I know I'll miss feeding her. I already miss the feeling of her inside me moving around and hiccuping. Those are moments I'll never forget.

Tosh is so patient and good with her. Her umbilical cord stump still hasn't fallen off - -it's close but not yet. It kind of freaks me out but I know it's OK. She goes back to the Dr. for her 1 month check up on April 2nd. Hard to believe...

Pictures

Dr. Beckner -- he delivered Adriana

It was such a beautiful day so we decided to take a family photo outside!

Papaw Coy!

Our little darling :-)

Welcome Adriana Cleo Barnette!

Well it is official! We have a new little baby girl! Her name is Adriana Cleo Barnette and here are all the details! On Friday March 6th I was having contractions apparently for an hour before I realized what they were. They felt more like stomach cramps and I was up and down a lot during the night. I tried to sleep through them but that didn't work out because at 5AM I got up to use the bathroom again and my water had broke! I woke Tosh up and within a couple hours (we had everything packed we just didn't want to rush it you know?) we were at the hospital. Tosh drove like a crazy man but we never saw a police man and we made it in plenty of time. They wheeled me up to the Birthing Center and once at the desk we found out they had 6 c-sections scheduled that day and they'd had several walk-ins too. There was no room for me at the moment but then someone who they'd put in a room was moved out because her water hadn't broken yet and mine had.

So we get put into a room and hooked up on all the monitors. Things are looking OK. Tosh is there and my Mom and Dad weren't far behind us. They had to take care of our dog. Contractions were happening but weren't too awful bad. As the day progressed, so did the contractions of course. I labored for 16 hours straight with nothing but 1/2 a miligram of Stadohl at one point. It slowed my contractions down though and then when they returned it was much worse. I hardly laid in the bed at all. It was 100 times worse when I was laying down than if I was sitting or standing when I had them. Most of the time I labored was standing up. Once we got to the point that I had to get back in the bed, it was push time. And that didn't go so well. I pushed for about 2 1/2 hours with no luck. The nurse kept saying I wasn't pushing correctly or something and I was ready to kick her out the door! How do you PUSH CORRECTLY? I was pushing with all I had and nothing was working. You could just barely see her head and my midwife said it was moving but my Mom and Tosh said it wasn't. Eventually I was at my breaking point. No pain meds, exhaustion, completely wiped out... I started to lose it a bit and was ready for a C-section. At no point was Adriana ever in distress that we could tell. Her head just wouldn't fit through my pelvis.

So quickly things changed -- they brought in the spinal guy, he talked and talked and I had to answer questions all the while trying to hold back from pushing, then came in a different Doctor, (whom we'd met previously in case this had to happen) and it was all a blur after that. They gave me a shot to stop the contractions then wheeled me down to the C-Section room. It took them 5 times to get the epidural in for some stupid reason -- all the while I'm feeling like I'm in some dream or something. Nothing seemed real to me.. I felt like I was watching someone else go through all this.

And before we knew it, they finally get things going, Tosh is there, and we have a baby girl! They gave me some good drugs that made me sleep for awhile and all the time I'm hearing people talking in my room and thinking in my head, "WAKE UP! You need to feed her or else you'll miss the window of opportunity! WAKE UP! COME ON!" But I just couldn't. I hardly got to see her before Tosh took her to the nursery when I was in the C-section room. I got to give her a quick kiss on the face and that was it. So when I finally woke up and they brought her to me I was so emotional. She is the best little nurser- ever! She caught right on and we've had no problems with breast feeding. I'm so glad I took that breast feeding class before hand. It taught me so much!

She was born at 10:32pm, weighed 6 pounds 10.4 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long. She has dark hair and looks like Tosh. I want to write more but Mommy duty calls. We've been home now since Monday and things are very different. We are enjoying our time with her and can't wait to share her "in person" with all our friends at LBC.

Please say a prayer for us -- we are so new to all this and it is very overwhelming. I'm just thankful we have extra hands from my parents right now. It sure helps out.

38 weeks 3 days

No change from the last Dr's appointment. I was a bit discouraged but it's what is meant to be I suppose. She will not let me go past 40 weeks so if I don't have this baby by next week then we will have it by next weekend (March 14th).

I've got pictures to post later from belly shots to Tosh's birthday yesterday! It was a really good one and I think he enjoyed it.

Progress!

Today was Dr. appointment day! I am 1 to 1 1/2 cm dilated and 80% effaced! I'm so excited :-)

She said my BP was good and everything seems ok. I've gained a couple more pounds so that's a plus too.

Tosh came through his endoscopy just fine and they are putting him on some new medication called Kapidex to help with the acid reflux. Hopefully once we get the insurance to cover it and he starts taking it, it will help alleviate some of these stomach issues.

Thank you for your prayers for both of us. We will keep you posted!

37 weeks 2 days

Sorry but I still don't have any pictures taken yet. We are out on a "snow day" today so maybe I'll get around to it. I also have big plans to write out more thank you notes since I won't be working today.

Currently, our students won't be getting out of school until June 13th or something like that. Long time into the summer!

I'm feeling pretty good. Since the baby is head-down I'm feeling lots of little heels/feet up under my ribs alot and it just about drives me crazy! I have another cold too. That's four colds since December. That's a whole lot for me. I usually only get one cold per year or something but I guess since I'm pregnant and my immune system is down a bit, and what with being in lots of different schools working with students, I've picked up some new strain of the cold bug. Tosh is sick too with a cold.

I've heard a lot on David and Goliath this past week. Almost like God is trying to tell me something -- and I think I know what it is. David relied on God's strength and his faith in God to get him through. He didn't back down to his "giant". And right now I think my giant is having this baby! I think God is trying to say to me, "When the moment comes, don't think you can do it alone. Ask me for strength and I'll give it to you and you will succeed." I was listening to Walk in the Word with James MacDonald and he had another good point about the Bible story. Sometimes we look at the story of David and Goliath and say "God won the battle" but we fail to see what David did. In life, we tend to sit back and say "I'll let the Lord take care of this one. The Lord will fight my battles for me." And yet, if you look at David, he is the one that put on the armor (then took it off again), he picked up the 5 stones from the brook, and he marched out on that battle field and even "pulled the trigger" you could say. His faith was so strong in God that all he had to do was get to the point where God would take over and finish it. And God did. God sunk that rock into Goliath's head and he fell to the earth.

We have to be willing to go as far as we can for God and then let him finish the battle in some cases. God wants us to be active in winning battles for/with Him. At church this past week we also did "Hello David/Goodbye David" an introduction and then the death of David. And of course we are introduced to David through this same Bible Story once more. The interesting part that David Buckham brought out was that David picked up 5 stones. Why five? David's theory is that if you continue through the book of Daniel you'll see that there were 4 other giants that came from Goliath and each of them David killed. Could it be those stones were representative of those 4 other giants after Goliath was killed? I don't know. But it sure was a neat idea!

We are studying the book of James over the next series of weeks and I'm really excited about it. I love the book of James and I can't wait to see what David is going to bring out each week. I've listened to the first sermon of "Organic Church" Pastor Michael did and it sounds really great! I'm sure our friends at Lexington are being challenged right now. Isn't it wonderful that as we grow and age God still is able to prick our hearts and we continue to strive to be more like Jesus?

Something else that touched my heart this week as we were studying James was that all we need is Jesus. Sometimes we get caught up in material things and I know I hear this all the time, but I needed to hear it again. Right now I am caught up in that "We don't have a house and our house isn't selling! ACK!" Somehow inside I get this notion that if our house would just sell in Lexington and we could move into another house here, that would solve everything. I would be happy and content. But that's the wrong attitude for me to have. God says I should have joy and be satistfied that Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough for me.

It's also tying into the Beth Moore Bible Study I've been doing too on Esther. Seeing God when you can't see Him. God is all over the book of Esther but He's not mentioned *in* the book of Esther. I guess God is trying to show me that He's working on my life, our future, our house (in Lex. and here), even though I can't see Him doing it. And He wants me to realize that He is sufficient for all I need. I don't need a house to have joy. I don't need a fancy nursery to have joy in a new baby coming. I don't need all sorts of baby toys or "items" in order to be set for this child to come. I am surrounded by loving family and friends right now and God is taking care of everything. So I should be content in that and find strength in God's word.

It feels so good to be learning and studying God's word. I couldn't wait to get to church last night and hear Goodbye David. I wanted to know what happened to David and what God had in store next. I got there just in time for the sermon. I had to help Tosh with a Hunter Ed class yesterday afternoon so I was a little late to church.

I look forward to Thursday night Bible Study on Beth Moore and even though God is challenging me through this bible study and I feel my heart pricked when certain things hit home, I still can't wait to get there and learn and allow the Holy Spirit to change me and show me how I can grow in Christ. I look forward to doing my weekly 'homework' for the study because it brings out so much I never thought about before on the book of Esther. Things that you just "read over" and don't take the time to *THINK* about. It's facinating!

Well, I hope each of you have a good and blessed day today. I'm hoping we'll have a baby soon... I'm ready for him/her. :-)

Doctor Update

We had to go to the Doctor today and here is what we know: I am still measuring well. The baby is in a head-down position so that is a blessing! My BP is good and my weight didn't go up -- I actually lost 1 pound this week. She said next week she'll start checking me to see where I am.

I'm so anxious! :-)