Clarissa Ruth Winkel
Born September 28th, 2012
6 lbs 13 oz
19 1/2 inches
We welcomed Clarissa into the world early in the morning on September 28th. She is such a sweet little girl and the other kids love her so much. We are so glad she came safely and healthy.
Our beautiful family of five!
Grandma Harrison so sweetly took care of the other two children and spoiled them with so much attention. They miss her!
Grammy, Papa and Natalie were able to come and meet the sweet new girl.
Aliyah is always holding her and just loves being a little mommy to her.
Already a week old.
Our crazy kids. I think Clarissa is nervous about the family she came to.
I was horrible at recording this pregnancy. So, just for my remembering I am jotting down a little about each stage and following up with the delivery.
First Trimester:
We found out we were having this little baby mid-February
and were very excited and maybe a little surprised. I still felt like I had a baby since I was
still nursing Joshua at the time we found out.
I quickly moved into the nauseous stage which is never fun. The kids constantly kept wondering what was
wrong with me. Aliyah’s response was
usually, “you can stop throwing up now”.
Joshua on the other hand would go around saying, “mommy, blah…mommy,
blah” (making quite the lovely throwing up sounds). Luckily, other than being tired and nauseous
it was a pretty good first trimester.
Second Trimester:
I felt so great during this time that I sometimes forgot I
was pregnant. We found out we were
having a little girl. Aliyah had wished
for a sister and already “knew” she was getting one. She had told us many times before we ever
found out that she loved her baby sister.
The greatest part during this time was little girl’s crazy kicks and
movements. She was active from the first
movement I felt. We started getting
nervous that was would have a crazy child.
Third Trimester:
Once this trimester hit, I started feeling all the big,
heavy and tired feelings. She moved down
low fairly soon and was always putting pressure on my bladder and pelvic
bone. I felt like I had gone from not
being pregnant at all to full-term. I
had weekly appointments from 28 weeks so they could monitor her and make sure I
wasn’t developing clots. She never stayed
on the monitor until around 34 weeks because she moved around too much. As we approached the induction date I felt as
if I couldn’t move at all. Everything
took a lot of effort. Turns out when
they checked for any dilation, her head was actually lower than the
cervix. Thus, why I had all that lower
pain. We scheduled the induction for
Friday, September 28th and she seemed ready to come since I was
contracting a couple weeks before and that very day.
The labor and delivery:
We began the induction around 9:30pm and I quickly began
regular and intense contractions. My
water broke pretty soon into it, but they said it was just leaking from the top
and they would eventually have to break it.
After about three hours of intense contractions, I finally gave into an
epidural as my body was getting fatigued.
The epidural was the worst pain I have ever had and I still sometimes
wish I hadn’t gotten it. I am not sure
what caused such pain, but it was miserable.
It finally started working after an hour or so. By that time, things had slowed down and I
got a little rest before the doctor came in to brake my water the rest of the
way and I ended up pushing her out quickly after that.
Clarissa Ruth came at 3:07am
weighing 6 lbs 13 oz and was 19 ½ inches.
She had lots of hair in back and a little fuzz on top, just like Aliyah
had. She is precious and so
beautiful. We could not have asked for a
more perfect baby. She smiled from the
first day and has everyday since. Most
of the time she is content and still, but has the loudest scream out of all of
our children. I just think she is making
sure that we remember her since our lives are very busy with other children and
responsibilities.
Aliyah and Joshua just love her
and are doing fairly well with having a new little one in the home. Joshua is sweet and loves to give her kisses,
but can be holding her and just come out from under her saying “done”. Aliyah could hold her all day and is such a
big help to me. She definitely has taken
on the second mother role.
We love these children and are so
blessed to have such healthy, beautiful kids.
