Tire

Go ahead and add changing a flat tire for the first time to my last post. Luckily, it was in my sister's parking lot instead of on the side of a snow-covered freeway. I will post pictures when I am able to post pictures from my whole trip.

New England Adventure

As I mentioned in the last post, we have some traveling to do this spring and summer. I've been looking forward to it, while at the same time dreading it because of all the preparation and energy that go into traveling with kids. Well, Operation Coast to Coast is officially underway since last Sunday when Matilda, Serafina, and I piled into our Mazda5 with all sorts of luggage, snacks, and toys to drive from Illinois to Connecticut. Did you get that? It was just the girls and me; no other adults. I honestly wasn't nervous about it. My mom has been pretty worried about it, and Sean said that he was nervous, but if I felt comfortable, then he was sure it would be fine. So plans were made for the roughly 1,000 mile journey.

*Note: as usual, this post is way longer than I intended. I wrote it all down because it was significant for me and I want to remember it. Will it be interesting to you? Meh, maybe not. If you don't like wordy posts, you may skip to the recap at the end.

As I said, I really wasn't nervous. That is, until it was actually time to leave. Once all of the craziness of packing bags, loading the car, and getting a variety of snacks ready was over and it was actually time to drive away from Sean, I got really nervous. For a moment, my heart pounded and my head reeled as I imagined what the next two days could possibly entail. Non-stop screaming from my toddler and preschooler. Matilda vomiting because of carsickness, which has happened twice before. Fatigue. Backache. Car troubles. And of course, no one to help me with any of it. I decidedly pushed those thoughts out of my mind and hit the road. I wanted to see my sisters (Allison lives in Connecticut and Lesli flew out a few days later), plus we timed this trip so that Sean would have an empty house in which to study for finals for 11 days.

Luckily, that first day was a dream! I couldn't have asked for it to go any better. We drove to Cleveland, where we stayed the night with some BYU friends of mine, Holly and Mark. It took about eight hours and we only stopped once for food and gas. Unfortunately, the luck didn't extend into the night. I had had a Dr. Pepper while driving and since I very rarely drink caffeine, I was pretty wired until 1 AM. I finally fell asleep, only to be awakened an hour later by Serafina, who normally sleeps 13 hours at night without waking up. She decided that the pack n play was not the place for her, and that the only thing that could tempt her to sleep again was laying on my chest. That does not mesh well with me being a stomach sleeper. So she was in and out of sleep on my chest until 6:30, when I was finally able to transfer her to the pack n play. And then Matilda woke up at 7:30.

At this point, I was thinking there was no way I could risk the lives of 3/4 of the Murphy family by driving approximately 9.5 hours on only 2 hours of sleep. I spent the morning hanging out with Holly and getting our stuff packed up, trying to decide what to do. I decided to go for it. I was feeling alert and awake, and figured that we could drive until that changed. About 90 miles into the trip, the weather changed. It started to rain right after we crossed the Pennsylvania border. And then it started to snow. When we entered New York, it was really snowing. Really REALLY snowing. Before it got too bad, I called Allison and asked her to look at the forecast and let me know how long I would be driving in snow. She told me that she looked at the radar map and told me that the whole country was sunny and warm, except for this tiny part in Pennsylvania and New York where there was this snow storm. Lucky me, right? It kept getting worse and worse, until there were a few inches on the road and it was a near white-out. My tires kept pretty good traction and it wasn't too icy, so I was able to go 30-35 MPH. But of course, that was our speed for over an hour, which is not what I was hoping for. Just as I had decided to stop at a hotel in the next town, the snow let up a bit and it was sticking less and less on the road, until there was none on the road at all. I was extremely grateful. Although it was still snowing for about 2 more hours, the roads were clear and we were able to pick up our speed. The 9.5 hour trip ended up taking 11 hours, which still wasn't too bad!

Are you wondering how the girls did on this second day of being stuck upright in their carseats all day? Once again, they were absolutely perfect. They stayed mostly happy. They fell asleep when they were tired. The only incident we had was a leaky diaper for Serafina because we drove so long before making our (once again) only stop. I promised myself and Sean and everyone else that I love that I would take as many breaks and naps that I needed in order to get us to Connecticut on only two hours of sleep, but amazingly enough, we only needed one stop! A prayer and 2/3 of a bottle of Dr. Pepper was all that I needed to keep me clear-headed.

Recap: 1000 miles over two days + one 3 year old + one 16 month old + only 1 stop each day + 2 hours of sleep + 1 snow storm = one of the most fun road trips I have ever had. Let's hope the return trip next week is just as fun, if not a bit less eventful.

Did you know...

...that we live in Champaign, Illinois?

 Nauvoo is about 4 hours away

...that Sean is attending law school at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign?

First day of school

...that Sean got a shave and a haircut (two bits!)?

...that we enjoy trips to Chicago?

Cubs game

...that Matilda turned three and loves going to preschool?

Rapunzel for Halloween

...that Serafina turned one?

...that the girls have their first cousin on the Murphy side?

Matilda, Serafina, and baby Elsa

...that we now have two curly-haired girls?

...that Serafina loves pasta?

I am going to try to post more often, especially since we are now thousands of miles away from most of our family and friends. We are really enjoying living here, even though life is crazy with Sean in school. We have a lot of great friends through church and school, even Jasper has made some great doggie friends! Anyway, life is good, time goes too fast, and we are looking forward to the end of Sean's first year so we can celebrate birthdays (mine and Sean's) and do some summer traveling! Until next time...

Where does the time go?

It's been almost 4 months since our last post, so it seems to be about the right time to blog again. Since having a second child, I simultaneously feel like I have all the time in the world and like I have absolutely no time to do anything. Does anyone know what I mean? I'll be home with the girls all day and not have anything planned, so I think to myself, "I'll probably have a little bit of time to blog today," but then the next thing I know, Sean is home from work and asking what we've done that day. As I try to think back on our day, there are many times when the only activities I can come up with are feeding the girls and cleaning up toys. Seriously? In all that time, I only did two things?! (Granted, I did those two things over and over again).

Anyway, I am forcing myself to sit down and write this while Serafina is napping and Tilly is coloring. My mom has requested more pictures, so here are some of my favorite pictures from February and March. Next up: Our California Trip (which occurred 3 months ago...)

Ready for church on Valentine's Day

Green eggs on St. Patrick's Day

One of Serafina's favorite expressions from the first few months

Making pancakes with Dad

She gets this from me. I always sleep with my arms floating in the air.

Tilly had fun with stickers one day...

...and then Serafina joined in the fun

I don't know what to put as a caption for this one. It is just a cute and silly face from Serafina.

P.S. Matilda is currently singing a song which includes these lyrics: "I don't like green ham, ham and cheese, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrooooooowwwww, it's a small world all all all, la la la la la laaaaaa."

Becoming a father for the second time

Becoming a father for the second time, it’s hard to explain. It was a bit like watching Bollywood remake of The Sixth Sense. I knew what was going to happen, all the elements were the same (we got a baby in the end—or in Megan’s case, out of her end), but it’s a different setting, different people, and more fun. That analogy obviously has its limits, however, as Bollywood seems to make everything longer (this birth was significantly shorter), and has more music (this one had less). But more about that later.

To back things up, I feel we should talk a minute about Matilda’s birth. It was in a hospital. In order to prepare, we watched a $10 DVD we bought off Amazon called Laugh and Learn About Childbirth. Our plan was to see how far Megan could make it, and hopefully give birth without an epidural. Megan made it to about 8 cm and requested anesthesia. Matilda’s cord was clamped within seconds of delivery and she went into respiratory distress. She spent a couple hours in the NICU and didn’t reach Megan’s arms until over two hours after delivery. The hospital was frustrating and the well-meaning nurses often failed to live up to our expectations, often contradicting one-another in their advice. The hospital bill came in at nearly $10,000.

In labor with Matilda

While a wonderful experience, it wasn’t quite what we had expected. I didn’t quite know how to articulate what went wrong, and nothing did go wrong, per se, but it could have gone better. So we set out in search of something better.

Now I’m not going to sit here and claim that what we found was the best, but for us, it was better. For those who have their babies differently, I’m not attacking or degrading your experience. I’ve seen more than one mother blog on the defensive about their right (or necessity) to have an anesthetized by-the-book hospital birth. If any such mother reads this and starts getting on the defensive, just cool your jets, chica bonita. I too have a right to share information about the way we did things. If at any time I come off as condescending, I may be just that. Feel free to point your Google Voyeur elsewhere.

With that caveat in mind, you are welcome to change the channel, or come along with me.

After some time, discussion, and analysis, we decided that the first problem was the traditional approach to pregnancy, and the cost/emotional involvement of a doctor. Megan had proven herself to be a pretty stable site for the gestation of our children. In other words, pregnancy was easy. Above that, and this applies to all women, pregnancy is natural and necessary to survival of the species. Whether you believe in creationism or evolution, we can all agree that somehow pregnancy became a key to life.

Recently, pregnancy has come to be seen as a disease. Pregnant women must be treated and monitored as if there were some abnormal process happening and charged as if they were Trump offspring. We disagree. We feel like unless there are identifiable concerns during pregnancy, there’s no need even for the involvement of a doctor. Millions (billions?) of women have successfully given birth throughout time without doctors. But somewhere along the line in America and Western civilization we decided that pregnant women are afflicted, and that the curse of Eve was manifest in these nine months of carrying babies, but especially in their delivery. That just is not right. I think much of it has become culture, and so women are deciding to react certain ways before the actions occur.

But I find myself venturing into waters I’m not fully prepared to swim in.

Megan and I chose to, with our second child, go with the ancient practice of midwifery with delivery at a birthing center. In part, this was because at the time, we did not have health insurance, and the cost of the prenatal visits, delivery, and postnatal care was to be 1/8 of the cost of an insurance-covered birth. However, even when we had insurance with Matilda, Megan strongly considered going with a midwife, and even when I get health insurance again, we will still use a midwife. It just helps the decision process when there’s only one option. We also wanted to treat this pregnancy more like the beautiful event that it was. We planned it, we caused it, and we wanted to enjoy it.

In preparation, we chose to take a Hypno-Birthing class, which I would highly recommend. It really helps put pregnancy and childbirth in a new light. It involves many of the philosophies I have mentioned (not viewing pregnancy as a disease to be treated), and also teaches you relaxation and life skills beneficial to all aspects of life.

In summation, Baby Two was going to be born in a birthing center, delivered by me, and Megan was to be minimally monitored throughout by midwives.

Jump with me now to December. Baby Two has been growing in Megan for seven months, but for some reason medical folk like to say she was eight months pregnant. It was another easy pregnancy for Megan, but she was ready for Baby Two to arrive. Although her due date was December 25, we wanted as much separation between Christmas and her birthday as possible, and for tax purposes I was hoping that the distance would come in the before Christmas direction. Things were complicated by the fact that December is such an incredibly busy time, and I was acting in Hale Center Theater Orem’s 21^st annual production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. So I had decided that the baby needed to come on a Sunday so that I could stay with Megan for a couple days and go back to doing the show on Tuesday. I’m also a bit weird when it comes to numbers, though, and I wanted something cool. I was hoping for a 12/12/10, or perhaps a 12/11/10, but that put Baby Two’s arrival about two weeks early. Also, I wanted her to come on some kind of even number. I don’t really care for odd numbers, and so far Megan, Matilda, and myself all had even birth-years. Another thing to mention is that according to our one and only ultrasound, their predicted due date was January 6, 2011. Without going into unnecessary detail, we knew the exact date Baby Two was conceived, and 40 weeks was December 25, so we and the midwives were using that instead.

Needless to say, those dates came and went. The next option was the twentieth, 12/20/2010. That would also be convenient since the 20^th was a Monday, which would at least provide the opportunity for me to do the show on Tuesday evening. Throughout the previous week, we had tried all the old tricks for induction: long walks, walking up and down hills, spicy food, driving over speedbumps, watching funny movies, and repetition of the act that started this whole thing. Sunday the 19^th rolled around, and all was quiet on the western front. It was time to break out the big guns.

Bienvenito, Signor Castor Oil.

Now we had heard the horror stories. Most admitted that castor oil worked, but that they would never do it again. Because it made them poop like a fire hose. I guess it’s a severe laxative that also causes the release of prostaglandins which can trigger labor if mother and baby are ready. If they’re not, it just makes mommy poop like a fire hose. (Are you tired of that visual yet?)

As previously stated, we wanted our child to be born on a date with cool numbers, so we had to avoid 12/19/2010. Ain’t nothing cool about that. It was also important to me that Baby Two not be born in the winter, so 12/21/2010 or later was out. You see, I had read a study that showed scientifically that babies born in the winter were dumber than those born at other times of the year. For those of you winter babies, fear not. I later found a more recent study showing that the odd phenomenon has more to do with the fact that babies whose mothers are uneducated are dumber and that uneducated mothers just happen to have more winter babies.

So to make a long story longer, Megan decided it was worth the risk of explosive liquid defecation and took some castor oil with orange juice at 5 PM Sunday night. We went up to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner, but it was life as usual. We had a nice dinner, nice conversation, and some non-painful surges. Megan didn’t make a big deal out of them because she had thought she was going into labor before, only to have nothing come of it. She didn’t want to become the boy who cried wolf. She did have my sister, also named Megan—a licensed massage therapist, massage her hands and feet, focusing on labor-inducing trigger points. Just like Old Man River, the happy little surges kept on rolling along.

We went back home and Megan took some more castor oil. Now lest you think she was overdosing, each time she was taking about ¼ the recommended dosage. We weren’t using a blowtorch to start the fire, just flicking matches at a pile of wood to see what happened.

The contractions came and went, but none of them were really the painful kind, and they were sometimes regular and sometimes sporadic.

Tick-tick-tick-tick… BOOM

I’m not sure what time the contractions started because as is the case in every good birth story, I was asleep, but I think Megan said that they began around 2 AM. I think she took a bath and made the final preparations for a birth bag, graciously letting me sleep for another hour or so. At that point I called my mother and asked her to come down and also called the Birthing Center to make sure that someone would be there. They told us to wait another 30 minutes or so and then call back to let them know how she was progressing.

This may be a good point to remark that Megan was a bit more nervous this go-around. She was nervous about not getting an epidural and nervous that she wasn’t coping with the pain as well as she did with Matilda. While both labors started at 2 AM, we didn’t go to the hospital with Matilda until 5:30 AM, while with B2, Megan was wanting to head out the door at 4 AM. Were things really progressing that much faster? Or was she just weaker? Had we really made the right choice to not even have an epidural as an option?

Thirty minutes later, the surges had only become more painful and were coming more often. By that time my mom had arrived to stay with Matilda, freeing Megan’s mother to come to the Birthing Center with us. We took my mom's car so that she could have our car with Matilda's car seat inside. We were glad that there was no snow or ice or traffic on the roads, but it turns out that we just barely missed the snow.

We arrived and went straight to our personal birthing suite. We had four rooms and two bathrooms all to ourselves. There was also a kitchen with a fully stocked fridge that we could have, but didn’t, raid all we wanted. Since we wanted to pay as little as possible, we went with the apprentice program. This meant that there was a midwife supervising at all the appointments and during the delivery, but the student was doing all the hands on work. It was nice knowing that the same two people would be with us throughout the entire process. Marie, the student midwife, met us there, but Trinette, the licensed midwife, had to come from Saratoga Springs. By the time she arrived, the snow was really coming down and piling up fast. I was glad we got there when we did.

The midwife team got Megan into bed just to get her blood pressure and vitals. Between 30-45 minutes later, they checked her progress and found that Megan was fully effaced and about 7-8 cm dilated. They asked if she would like to get in the tub, and Megan said that she would. We were excited about the whole water-birth thing. Immediately following that exam, Megan had a major surge and felt like she had progressed a centimeter or more just in that one surge.

While the tub was filling, she worked through a couple more difficult surges, and then she hopped in—insofar as a pregnant woman in labor can hop, which would be kind of like watching a rabbit that just ate a bowling ball try to hop.

Megan lay there in the tub, trying to relax in between contractions. I should mention here that the hypno-birthing came in handy throughout all the contractions. It gave me something to do, a role to play. This was nice because we knew beforehand what I was and wasn’t going to do. I was going to encourage breathing, visualizations, muscle relaxation. I wasn’t going to ask her if the contractions hurt.

Megan slept on my lap in between surges as I sat on the edge of the tub. She would later remark how incredible the experience of laboring in a tub was. It helped with the pain, helped her relax, and encouraged lots of good and happy pleasantness.

In labor with Serafina. Compare to the first picture. Even without pain meds, this was much more relaxing for both of us.

And to toot my own horn (Ahhhh-wooooo-gaaaaaah—yes, that’s what my horn sounds like), the midwives would later remark that I was one of the best husbands they have ever seen come through their center. I am pretty much amazing. I think the only thing I did wrong was to attempt to use our portable iPod speakers for the purpose for which we brought them—to play the relaxing music playlist that Megan spent over three hours creating. I hit “play” on the iPod and about 6 seconds later Megan said firmly, “No, I do not want that.” So I turned it off. How silly of me.

Let’s now return our attention to the tub containing Megan and the little one trying desperately to achieve splashdown. After a few very uncomfortable surges, Megan expressed interest in bearing down (pushing the baby out). They checked her and said that since she was fully dilated and effaced, she could go for it.

One odd side note, when I asked at that point if Megan’s water had broken yet, they said that it had not. Thanks to YouTube, I knew that babies could be born in the amniotic sack and be fine, but I didn’t want my first impression of this child to be a ball of fluid. The other odd thing was that they remarked how much hair she had. I guess that’s something that you can feel through the amniotic sac.

The next set of surges was intense, so much so that Megan wouldn’t even let the student midwife put the baby monitor against her stomach. She bore down a few times and said, “Sean, I can feel her head! Give me your hand!”

I felt the top of her head, and then all of a sudden a baby was in my arms. I couldn’t believe it. I had just delivered my second child. I brought Serafina to the surface and placed her against Megan’s chest. She was breathing just fine, but seemed to just want to sleep. As we rubbed her back and arms and legs, however, she woke up a bit and cried, getting some good oxygen flow to her extremities.

Serafina went straight from my arms to Megan's. The midwives did everything they needed to while Megan held her.

What a miracle is the birth of each child. The time was 6:03 AM. Megan only pushed for three minutes.

Previously, we had decided to allow the umbilical cord to stop pulsating before cutting it. There are many reasons for this, and virtually no plausible explanation as to why doctors and hospitals clamp and cut within 15 seconds. In fact, as I sought to educate myself on the subject, I found over twenty scholarly articles and many hundreds of internet opinions explaining why delaying cord clamping is better. As was the case with Matilda, early cord clamping can sometimes cause respiratory distress and expensive trips to the NICU. Other articles posit that early clamping can lead to oxygen deprivation and be a contributing factor of Autism. I’m not going to go into a deep discussion of it here, but all you parents who are currently expecting or plan to have more children, please do not clamp the cord before it has stopped pulsing. It can potentially cause lifelong detriments to the baby.

So we waited for Serafina’s lifeline to stop its infusion of stem cells, blood, and ooey-gooey goodness into our fresh arrival. They then clamped, and I cut. Serafina was officially on her own. After another minute of rest and recovery, Megan decided to leave the tub (now filled with all sorts of fun colors and liquids), and made her way back onto the comfy queen bed (with a plastic sheet, of course). Judy (Megan’s mother) and I took turns getting to know this wingless angel, but not in that order. I held her first, but had to list Judy first in order to use proper grammar. Stupid English language.

Having our first daddy-daughter time

The little Titan weighed in at 5 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long.

After that, everything went like clockwork. Serafina was, and still is, a sleepy baby. We tried desperately to do as the midwives told us in waking her up for long enough to eat, but she kept going back to sleep. It reminded me of Megan and her stupid snooze button. The only hiccup came when during one of our attempts to keep Megan awake and baby awake and get them to a point where Megan could feed her, Megan turned ghostly pale and nearly passed out. We got her laying down, then got her some food and Gatorade. After a bit of a nap, she was feeling better.

Matilda and my mother came to visit about 8 AM, and Megan still looked a little rough. You could tell that scared Matilda a bit, but she was extremely excited to see her new baby sister. She knew right away that Baby Sister was no longer in mommy’s tummy, but she was right there in her arms. At two years and four months, Matilda was incredibly smart, perceptive, and intuitive. Two months later, she still is.

Sisters meeting for the first time

I went to go take a shower, and took a nice long one. The hot water supply was seemingly endless, and I was exhausted, so I felt free to take my time. After that, I went back to bed with Megan and the new baby and we took a nap together for about an hour. Our mothers were off running errands with Matilda.

At about 10:30, we started to get things out to the car. There was minimal paperwork, and the $1,400 bill covering prenatal and postnatal visits as well as labor, delivery, and recovery was paid in full in advance, so there was no bill forthcoming. We took some pictures with our midwives and were on our way.

Another funny point is the timing of the births of our two daughters. The active labor for Matilda and Serafina began at around 2 AM. Serafina came at 6:03 AM and Matilda came at 11:18 AM. At 11:18 AM on December 20, 2010, we were at the pick-up window at the In-N-Out drive thru with a new baby, a happy, healthy, and mobile mommy, and no hospital bill. Can you tell that I’m excited about not having a hospital bill?

On our doorstep just 5 hours after being born

Megan was a hero throughout the whole process. She said that there were moments where she questioned our sanity in doing this without anesthesia, but loved being able to feel where the baby was at each step of the way and being able to control its arrival. Megan said that the pain was bearable, but annoying. She also spoke about how empowering the whole thing was. She basically delivered her own child. There was minimal tearing (two stiches).

I was there to support, and the midwives were there “just in case”, but in the end, it was all Megan. I don’t foresee us ever going back to the expense and unnecessary procedures of a hospital birth, pending, of course, a pregnancy where Megan becomes a higher risk. Especially from the point of view of Megan’s post-partum presence of mind and recovery, but in so many other ways, this experience was incredible. I look at pictures of the hospital birth, and I loved getting Matilda, but hated nearly every other aspect of it. With Serafina, it was awesome to get my wife back so quickly and be able to sleep in my own bed that night.

So that’s basically it. She’s still growing like a weed, giving us big smiles, grabbing fingers, and reaching for faces. She is adorable and adored by all, especially her big sister. We’re all still adjusting to being a family of four, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

If anyone has any questions about hypno-birthing, midwives, water birth, delayed cord clamping, or the effects of In-N-Out on post-partum recovery, Megan and I are happy to share our experience and knowledge.

Trying to keep you happy.

Dear Readers of Our Blog,

I promise I have not forgotten about our blog. I remember how to get to it and I remember how to post. I remember that there are a few people around the globe who really want to get updates about the Murphy family and see pictures of our darling daughters. I remember all of these things and have wanted to post several times the past six weeks. The problem is that we have so little time for the things we want to do these days. And frankly, when we do have time for something we want to do, I have not wanted to choose blogging over a date night or movie night or sleep. Alas, this must come to an end. Sean is sitting next to me writing Serafina's birth story, so I thought I would go ahead and do a mini-update with some pictures. Once we have the birth story posted, we might even have time to put together and mail some birth announcements!

What we have been up to:

• Recovering from childbirth
• Celebrating Christmas, our 4th anniversary, and the New Year
• Not getting much sleep
• Sean performed in A Christmas Carol at HCTO
• Sean directed the 3rd Annual Hale Freezes Over 10k/5k on Jan 29
• Teaching dance (Megan)
• Keeping an eye on Matilda so she doesn't smother Serafina with her love
• Visit from my parents, my two sisters, and three of my nephews to meet Serafina and be here for her blessing
• Baby shower
• Sundance Film Festival
• Enjoying life as a family of four and soaking in as much of these girls as we can while they grow through each fleeting phase. 
• And most importantly, Matilda built her first snowman.

The Snowman

 Vernon Family Christmas Party at Grandma Fern's. Serafina was 6 days old.

Jasper on Christmas morning. He is getting big!

Matilda loves to get Serafina's toys for her. And I have discovered that my old beanie babies make great gifts for the girls. Matilda loves them!

Sean said that Matilda sat there eating her snack with her hand on Serafina's head for about 30 minutes straight

She is tiny

Baby Shower. Thanks Loni!

Family picture on Seri's blessing day. Pretend she looks happy. That rocking chair belonged to Serafina and Matilda's great great grandmother.

Tilly was ECSTATIC to have Sam back! Kids love playing in Jasper's crate. Don't worry, Tilly knows how to open it from the inside.

Pretty girl. She is growing up so fast! Compare this picture to the family pic from the Christmas party. She has changed a lot!

Park City for Sundance

Tilly wanted to build another snowman so she put on her boots, mittens, and hat all by herself. She forgot the rest of her clothes. Unfortunately, the snow had all melted. We're still waiting for another good snow so she can build another one.

Since she couldn't build a snowman, she decided to jump off the porch a few times instead.

What A Morning...

After four and a half hours of labor and three minutes of pushing, I had a baby this morning. Five hours later, we were sitting on the couch at home eating In'n'Out while our dog sniffed Miss Serafina to get acquainted. What an unbelievable morning!

Serafina Fern Murphy
December 20, 2010
5 pounds 14 ounces
20 inches

Sean posted a lot of pictures on facebook, so you can check those out until I get some on here. I think I'll get Sean to write the birth story since he did such an excellent job with Matilda's. Stay tuned!