John Ellis Cash. 1 Month Old...already!

January 20, 2011 @ 1:19 a.m. John Ellis Cash joined our family and we grew to become a true "party of five". During this pregnancy, numerous people (some we know and many strangers, too!) have asked to pray for me and the baby...everyone was praying the same prayer--that this baby would, like John the Baptist, be filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb. So many times we heard this prayed that we decided to incorporate 'John' into his name. Ellis came from Josiah! We don't know where he came up with Ellis since we don't know anyone by this name but we liked it and like that it means "my God is the Lord". We are calling him by both names but Lucas seems to always just say Ellis...and it may just stick. We shall see as the months go by.

Labor with John Ellis was so different than the other boys...we had gone to LifeGroup, come home and put the boys to bed and were getting settled down for the night as well. I guess I wasn't prepared for my water to break prior to labor starting since that has never happened before...in fact, Lucas was actually born with his waterbag intact! Contractions started maybe 30 minutes later and were fairly strong from the beginning. My parents came from Gatesville to stay at the house with the sleeping boys so Jody & I headed to the hospital much sooner than we ever have before (I was 8 cm when we got there). I have never labored at the hospital with the others...we just got there in time to push and have a baby...but laboring there a couple hours wasn't too bad after all (thanks to our midwife C. Miller who let me move and do basically whatever I wanted). Once I finally felt the urge to push he came quickly with the labor lasting about 4 hours total. I was SO thankful to have him in my arms and super thankful for Jody--he is always an awesome labor coach.

One of my favorite things about natural childbirth is that I get to experience how just speaking the name of Jesus can bring peace to my body, mind and spirit.

Oh, and thanks to all our family & friends who have come by, brought diapers, meals, groceries, prayed and offered help as we transitioned to having 3 kids. You all are blessings!!