Bella has been Born! I am a Nana!

All of us wrote down when we thought that Bella would be born. Our son in law picked 11/14. He prays over Beautiful every morning before work and talks with Bella. Yesterday morning he added that it was the day to be born as it was the day he picked. She was such an obedient daughter to be born last night at 11:22 ;) If that continues it will serve them well when she is a teenager lol!

This weekend I told Beautiful that I was working on the calendars that we give the families for Christmas gifts and I had until 11:59 p.m. on 11/14 to submit the calendars in order to get the discount - so she had to have the baby by then if she wanted her in the calendar. We are laughing about these conversations now!! Of course, I didn't have a picture in time to submit the calendars with her in them, so I waited an extra day and used a different discount because she needs to be in the calendar;).

The biggest joke those has been that she came during rifle season. Which would make her anywhere from 14 to 21 days early. She came 18 days early. My husband, SIL, and daughter are all hunters. When they told me the due date I laughed and said she was going to disrupt their hunting week, which is also crazy busy as we are a deer check in station during that week. Since the men wouldn't let Beautiful hunt she ran the check in station while they hunted and I managed children. It worked great...except that now I have to run it (like usual) when the men go hunt. Beautiful got a lot of questions while she was checking deer - she had to have Grace climb up in the trucks to tag the deer since she couldn't do it herself;)

Yesterday Beautiful told me she thought things were possibly happening that she thought was labor. I got home from work at 7 p.m. and texted if they wanted to come watch a movie her husband had asked to watch. I didn't hear anything. After an hour I finally texted our son in law since it is extremely rare that Beautiful doesn't respond to our texts. He said they were at the hospital and the doc was on his way!

I started crying, wishing I was there to take her pain. My husband was butchering a deer and full of blood but I went to him for a hug anyway. Of course I only got the hug after I reassured him that nothing was wrong, I was just having a silly "my first born is having her first born" moment. I had such a hard time with my 2 deliveries and if I wouldn't have been in a hospital with them I may not have survived. With Beautiful we both likely would have died if we had done a home birth. That is why my husband said after 2 kids that we were not getting pregnant again! So it was a bit nerve wracking for my husband and I to wait for news and not be there - like we could have done anything to help anyway. Our SIL texted a couple of updates and it sounded like things progressed well.

At 12:30 he texted to say that Bella was born at 11:22. I had been asleep for about 30 minutes but there was no more sleeping after that lol! I was worried how things had gone, even though he said all was well. Beautiful started texting a bit until 2. Then she started up again at 4:30 a.m. I got a couple of hours of sleep. I finally went to the couch so the texting wouldn't keep my husband away lol! I figured that my first grand baby was only born once and if I couldn't be with Beautiful at least I could be texting with her:)

How unfair that Bella was born so late at night that I couldn't rush up there and reassure myself that Beautiful was well!  lol!

We told JJ before he went to sleep that Bella was being born. He asked if it would hurt Beautiful. When I told him "yes" he responded with "I am so glad I am not a girl!!!" 

First comments:
Buddy: smiles and thankful that they are all ok
Superman: smiles and "awesome!"
Grace: "you are kidding!?!"
Faith: "are they ok?"
JJ: "is her out!?! She is out of Beautiful's stomach now?!?!  I need to go see her! Where is she? I need to tell her I am her uncle!!"
My husband: "Is she ok?"

As soon as we had the kids off to school in the morning we rushed to the hospital. I was thankful that I only had to work for 1 hour today so we could spend more time with Beautiful, Bella, and our SIL, but also because my brain is pretty much mush today! I got to hold Bella while my SIL went home to shower and Beautiful got in a short nap. I can see how content that I will be to be Nana:)

I remember how completely out of sorts I was when Beautiful was born. So many things happened that I did not prepare for and I did not know what I should do. I am trying to give Beautiful and her husband some advice while also letting them make their own decisions. I keep telling them to tell me to back off if I step on toes. I think the hardest part about being Nana will be keeping that strong boundary. We did it well, I think, when they married and we had to figure out the new dynamic. I am confident we will do a good job of it with this situation too.

My Personal Assistant

For years I have wanted a Personal Assistant. Someone to shadow me and keep my mind straight, help organize me, and do miscellaneous tasks for me that I don't have time for. This spring I hired one...my daughter lol!

While she doesn't shadow me or keep me organized, she does do the miscellaneous tasks that help free up time for me to get other things done. She helps me with work and personal paperwork. A huge help is that part of her duties is helping with the younger kids. I don't have to worry about her feeling like I am taking advantage of her when I ask her to keep at kid for an hour, or run the car pool, or hang out with a kid or 2 at the house while they use my ingredients to cook goodies, etc. She even made the bars that I had to take to the church one Sunday for a dinner lol! She is a better cook so it was a good deal. I was laughing today that I actually had to make myself some chocolate chip cookies today since I ate up the last goodies she made for us;)

If I hired a non-family member to do those things it just wouldn't work. She is a good worker. However, the more pregnant she gets the more I wonder how things will change once the baby is born. She has promised me, though, that Thursday will be Nana days. It is my day off of work and I will get to cuddle Bella those days. I am so excited to be a grandma!

Anyway, I am learning that having Beautiful as my Personal Assistant means that I have to actually be organized enough to tell her what to get done when she shows up for work. Often she asks me what she should be doing next and I haven't gotten myself organized;)  Last week we spent 6+ hours doing sorting and filing for personal and business receipts, etc. Then I spent the next day for 6 hours entering year end data for taxes (yuck!). I had to laugh as she was pretty disgusted with my lack of organization. She said, "you know that when you die I am just throwing all of this away, right?"  I guess I won't need any of the receipts for tax purposes after I die so it will be fine lol! We said that we would stay on top of filing monthly now to make it less arduous. I think one of my problems is that I don't have an office. Maybe once more kids move away I can free up a bedroom for an office but right now I don't have the space for that so it makes it harder to keep things sorted. When we bought this house and remodeled we did it for a family of 4 - that would have been plenty spacious lol!

The biggest change has been my purchasing and now attempting to use a new program for my private practice. It has been a nightmare for me to learn how to use - although once I actually figure out components I am thrilled with how easy it is to use. It is just that steep, REALLY steep, learning curve that I always have with electronics...sigh...  But she is helping me keep other areas organized.

I am thankful for her help and her flexibility. She is keeps forcing me to keep paperwork a priority when the issues with the kids tend to be in crisis mode and the "squeaky wheel gets the grease." We will see how things change once Bella comes, but my hope is that we will make up a new routine and it will work fine. There will be no shortage of people to "watch" Bella. My husband might actually even stick around the house more just so he can get his time with her.  Hunting...grand-daughter... Hmmm.. it will be fun to see which he chooses lol!