With these two hands

Finally sitting down to give a quick update on our family while the girls are both sleeping. God has been so good to us these past four weeks as we have adjusted to life with two daughters. We have been especially blessed by all of our friends here in Lima who have gone out of their way to serve us and love on us as we transition. I must say that it has been hard to be so far away from our families in the States but God has just overwhelmed me with his love for us through our Christian community here.

And now, for those of you who are interested, I wanted to share Norah's birth story! It all started on Friday, September 9th, at 3am when I woke up with contractions that were every five minutes. I was two days late at this point and really excited that I could be in labor. I lay in bed trying to go back to sleep but was unable to because of the discomfort of the contractions and the excitement that I felt. I got out of bed at 6am and started to go through my morning routine. Once I was up moving around the contractions got a little harder and I felt that I really might be in labor. We called another missionary family (they have been such a blessing to us since the day we met them) around 7:30am to come and get Evelyn so that Steven and I could begin to focus on the arrival of Norah. We started to get our home ready for her arrival–gathering up towels and old sheets and setting up some soothing music. We lit some candles that smelled yummy and of course got out the baby supplies and a few other things to help with clean up after the big event. To be honest, Steven did most of these things

Around 8:30am another missionary, who is excellent at Spanish and also has a lot of experience with home births, came over to help us through the whole delivery (we could not have done it without her). Once she got here we all decided to go for a walk to help my contractions get stronger and boy did it work. After a couple of laps around the park behind our apartment I felt like it was time to ask the doctor to come to our home. Unfortunately, he was a bit preoccupied with another birth (info that we did not share on facebook at the time) but it was still a bit early so we weren't panicking yet.

Since we had Norah at home we had great access to the internet and we were able to post frequent updates and even pictures for our family and friends who are so far away. As my contractions got stronger, Steven and Jess (our awesome friend) read comments of encouragement to me which actually helped a lot. The doctor did finally arrive a little after 1pm and at this point I was definitely ready for Norah to be born. My doctor helped me to get into a squatting position next to our bed and Steven sat behind me to help hold me up (I was pretty tired by this point). Jess was close by holding my hand. At one point while I was pushing I did manage to pull my doctor's hair, which he said was totally fine, but I kind of felt bad about afterwards (pretty funny now I guess). After about twenty minutes of pushing, Norah was in my arms and we all took a deep breath. Steven–my hero–pulled me up on to the bed and I lay on his lap holding my sweet daughter. It was a precious moment that I will never forget. 

We both recovered safely in the comfort of our home and have continued to do great, praise be to God! Here are some pictures from Norah's birthday...

I think I was chatting with Lauren Cowart here in between contractions... I couldn't keep that up for long.

Right around the time I pulled the doctor's hair.

What a perfect moment!

Steven holding Norah for the first time!!

Checking out her new room.