We have had such a great first week. Jillian is such a good baby. She hardly ever cries, and even when she does it is only for a minute or two. She loves being held, and her precious little face just melts my heart. Right now I can not imagine going back to work. I just want to spend all the time I can with her. Joe is a great daddy and is very helpful. We are truly blessed.
It is hard to believe that a week ago we were in the hospital getting ready to have our little girl. Each day this week I thought of how busy last week was with preparing for Jillian. She sure did surprise us with coming a bit early, but we could not be happier. She came in God’s perfect timing. I have truly felt the prayers and the Lord’s presence in all of this.
When Dr. Gaich asked if we were ready to be parents, Joe and I kind of laughed and said we were getting there (thinking we had 4 weeks left), and I remember jokingly saying “Is anyone ever ready?” But he quickly said, no, are you ready to be parents THIS week. SURPRISE! God’s hand has been in all of this and I am so thankful for all the blessings He has given us. All last week I felt such peace with where things were going…Our doctors appointment Tuesday lead to an amniocenteses Wednesday, and then the birth of Jillian on Thursday. We could not have asked for delivery to go any better. Our nurses were amazing and Dr. Bellante was wonderful throughout the day and during delivery. They were all very encouraging. The birth of our first child was such a wonderful experience.
Jillian, or as Joe and I have nicknamed her Jillibean, is just perfect. I call her my “little bean” and I absolutely love spending time with her. It has been difficult to want to do anything else but hold her. And since I know I can not spoil her this early, I do just hold her, snuggle her, and stare at her pretty much all day.
It is really fun experiencing her “firsts” with her. Everything is new and it is amazing to see her reactions and wonder what she is thinking.
A week ago, almost to the minute, we welcomed Miss Jillian Grace Clarke to the world. Mommy and Daddy love you so much Jilly Girl!
More pictures tomorrow 
It feels good to be finally bringing you news updates from home, and my gaming PC with the huge monitor and full size keyboard. Much better than the little eee PC netbook. Don’t get me wrong, it most certainly did its job, as it was my mobile base camp for the pregnancy updates. Just feels good to be back. I bet maybe 2 of you read the above text before jumping right to the baby photos. No shame in it. She trumps Daddy’s weird computer habits right now.
Goin home! Say hi to Kingsley!
Sponge bath! Nice hat girly!
Jillian says her first word: OK! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sweet hat girly girl!
Also, it’s time for me to get on somewhat of an Microsoft advertisement soapbox. I’ve been using Windows Live Writer for all my blogging and Windows Live Photo Gallery for all my photos. These two apps are just amazing. The photo gallery is the one used in all the “Mojave” commercials where they make panoramic photos. It’s awesome, you just point it to your pictures folder and blamo, it can sort all the photos in subfolders by date, month and it has a killer interface. Also it actually can scan all the photos using face recognition and will tag people in photos for you as it finds them. Awesome.
Also, somebody stole our trashcans, which I find hilarious. I took them out Wednesday evening for trash, then we left early on Thursday to go to the hospital, then when we got back they just weren’t in the garage. I made the calls, and they were gone on Thursday morning. So either the trash men took the cans, someone stole them, or they caught a gust of wind that sent them to Brunstucky, but hey, that’s where the trash belongs. OHHH SNAP!! No offense to anyone in Brunswick. Except Mike Mehalic. Offense to him. Julie saved the day by bringing us new trash cans, which we desperately need to fill with poopy diapers. w00t baby poop…
Well I figured I’d give one last update from Medina General before we head home. Jillian is doing wonderfully, she is feeding well and in great shape. We’ve had a bunch of people come and meet her, and we are very excited for the rest of you out there to meet her!
Jillian and I watched our first movie together last night, Apollo 13. What a great first movie to watch! Drama based on real life, and Tom Hanks and Ed Harris are just phenomenal in the roles they play. Jillian said she liked the ending but it was a little suspenseful for her first movie ever in life.
I actually did sleep in the hospital last night, just because I didn’t want to drive home just to drive back. So I drove home this morning, went on a run with Kingsley, grabbed a shower, unloaded some things from the car, got myself a bacon egg and cheese biscuit and java from the healthy healthy McDonalds and came back.
We should be heading out this afternoon.
The calm before the storm…
That’s right, it’s not just the anniversary of her birthday, it actually IS her birthday. And since she’s not yet a day old, we say happy 0th birthday to you! It’s only your birthday for another 15 minutes, so make a wish! Sorry we don’t have a cake and presents, but we’ll make it up to you for your 1st birthday.
We’re so thankful for all the prayers and support you guys have been giving us. And we loved the comments! I read almost all of them out loud to Sarabeth (as long as we weren’t yelling push etc). Truly God has been good to us, he blessed us with a near perfect delivery and such a beautiful little baby. Your prayers have definitely been felt!
Isn’t she just adorable? Right now Sarabeth is holding her and she’s just gently cooing and murmuring to us, as if to say, “Thanks guys, I love you too. I’m ready for a sleep break now.” We’re about to get some sleep and send her to the nursery to be watched and monitored for the night while we sleep.
Goodnight all, thanks for tuning in. God Bless,
Joe and Sarabeth
Joe’s left hand, her right hand.
Stretchin’ after a long day.
She wanted to eat my finger!
Welcome Jillian Grace Clarke. 4 pounds 9 ounces, 18″. We all love you so much!
9.5cm. Look out world, Baby Clarke is on the way!
Sarabeth is sitting up in her bed and is very hungry. The first thing she wants to eat after we have our little girl is a Grilled Chicken sandwich with Mayo. Like I said in a previous post, she’s dreaming of Chicken Sandwiches. From Wendys.
We’re now pushing 39 ML/hour of Pitocin, finally I think we might be getting somewhere. Haven’t had a measurement from the doctor in a while, so as far as we know she’s still 4cm.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
