Kira Elise Johnson

The highlight of our November was the arrival of Kira Elise Johnson. The girls have been anxiously waiting for her arrival. As my due date got closer, we had to talk about how babies sometimes don't come on the day they are due and that we just don't know if it would be before or after her due date of 11/27/11. I had been having contractions on and off for a while but nothing very regular. Early Thanksgiving morning, I started having some regular contractions that were anywhere from 8-10 minutes apart. They weren't very strong, but remained somewhat consistent for a few hours. I finally decided I should wake Ben up and we decided to go to the doctor. Mackenzie arrived so quickly, that even my doctor felt it would be better for us to go quickly if we had any kind of regular contractions. We called a friend to come and stay with the girls until they woke up in the morning. We left for the hospital about 5:00 a.m. They monitored me for a couple of hours, but the contractions didn't progress and I didn't dilate past the 3 cm that I was at already. The doctor on call finally decided to send us home. We were pretty disappointed, but we decided to go home and enjoy Thanksgiving. Ben's parents were driving down that morning and would be arriving at our house at about 2:00 p.m. After resting for a while, we got Thanksgiving dinner going and welcomed Grandma and Grandpa. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner but no more contractions. I thought for sure we'd be back at the hospital either later Thursday or Friday. Friday went by, Saturday went by, and I went to church on Sunday. Nothing. . . We were scheduled to be induced already on Monday morning. Sure enough Kira was not going to come on her own. We arrived at the hospital, and I was started on the Pitocin about 6:30 a.m. When I was induced with Tori and Alyssa, they arrived about 3:00 p.m., so I was ready for a full day of laying in bed hardly moving. (That's the part I really dislike about being induced. They want to monitor you the whole time and they don't want you to move hardly at all because it messes with the monitors.) About 10:00 a.m., I asked for an epidural. I could tell at that point that things were going pretty quickly. By 11:20 a.m., I could tell Kira was coming. The doctor made a quick arrival and Kira was born at 11:28 a.m. on 11/28/11 weighing 8 lbs. 15 ozs and was 20.5 inches long. She had a head full of hair and hair all on her arms and back. We call her a little gorilla! She's adorable and looks a lot like Alyssa did when she was born. We are so excited she's finally here. Tori, Alyssa, and Mackenzie love holding and helping their new little sister.

Thanksgiving dinner. . . still not here yet.

You can barely see it, but the scale shows 8 lbs. 15 ozs.

Love this picture.

A couple of days old.

Our Merry Christmas!