Clara Beth

 Announcing the arrival of our little Miss...

Clara Beth Schulz

Born March 29, 2022 at 3:28pm

Weighing 7lb 11.5oz

Measuring 21.5 inches

Welcomed home by all her excited siblings!

Those teeny little feet...

Her big brothers love to hold her...

Big sister is so thrilled for another little girl!

Keenan doesn't really know where she came from, but he is in LOVE with this new baby of his and takes very good care of her!

It is so fun to have another little girl...and a baby who adores her mama above all else! (Daddy tends to take over as the favorite person pretty quickly once they figure out how fun he is! I mean...can't blame them!)

The name Clara is one we have liked and had picked out since we were expecting Micah, but somehow Joanna's name prevailed when we had our first girl. Clara is also named after my great-grandma Clara Moser (my mother's maternal grandmother). Our Clara shares a middle name with her Grandma in Heaven, Karen (Beth) Schulz. 

A Labor Story That You Aren't Obligated to Read: It all began with ingesting many gallons of red raspberry leaf tea, several bags of dates, and a few pineapples. All the usual that generally don't help labor come any sooner for me. But Clara happened to be my second-earliest baby at only six days overdue! Yeehaw!! 

I was dilated to 3.5 cm at my 40 week appointment the week before. I woke up on Tuesday the 29th around 2:30am with regular contractions about 5-10 minutes apart. So I promptly got up and did laundry. I know that's what everyone does when they know they are in labor; don't try to tell me it's a fifth child thing. I got the remainder of our hospital bag packed, finished the laundry, and laid back down until Matt's alarm went off for work at 5am. At which point I informed him that I was in labor. He had a hard time believing me because it was a little soon...like only six days late? Say what?

My goal was to not need to go to the hospital until the kids were all awake, fed, dressed, and packed for Grandma's (ok, as I review this I am a little humored that there are clearly more urgent matters than a pending childbirth when you've got four other children. I mean, life must go on!). So we kind of just chilled out for awhile and let our morning routine roll on. I was starting to get uncomfortable enough that I couldn't really focus on managing children, so we shipped them off around 9am and came back home to get their bags packed and try to get labor to progress with a little less chaos.

I had just enough time to get the kids' stuff packed up before I started getting anxious about being a half hour away from the hospital, so we headed for Burlington. Our first stop was McDonald's because I was hungry. Then we proceeded to Menards. I figured the baby would surely come quicker if the alternative option was being at Menards (hehe...neither of us can figure out why that store fatigues me faster than any other place in the world). So Matt was in his bliss meandering around his favorite store while I walked up and down the aisles trying not to cause a scene as I waited for my water to break in the lightbulb section (thankfully no such scene ensued). Within about a half hour, I was getting uncomfortable enough that being only two blocks from the hospital was starting to make me nervous, so we made our way to the final destination.

Hospital arrival was 11am. And...drumroll please...3.5 cm dilated, the same as five days prior. Wahoo. But I guess I had thinned out quite a bit with eight hours of active labor. I sat in the waiting room on the monitors while they got all my admission paperwork completed. I walked around the halls for two more hours, and by 2pm contractions were three minutes apart. I officially got admitted to my room and was barely dilated to four centimeters. So encouraging.

I was only able to do my power walking for another twenty minutes or so, then came into the room and needed Matt's support. Soon I was in the whirlpool tub. Around 3pm, I was so uncomfortable and contractions were starting to last a couple minutes each. I was quite discouraged (assuming I was dilating slowly) and ready to throw in the towel for an epidural because I was in way too much pain to go on for hours in that condition. I got out of the tub and asked for another cervix check before I made any rash decisions.

And that is when all the discouragement turned to complete joy when that wonderful nurse said I was fully dilated! EH?? A hee hee hoo and that about wrapped up the most beautiful birth ever.

And I got to be the first one to snuggle a very beautiful, healthy baby girl. God be praised!

'Tis the end of that story, but only the beginning for sweet Clara Beth.

Our hospital stay was extended an extra night so she could spend some time under the bili lights. We finally got to bring her home to meet the kiddos on April Fools Day! 

Heading home with our new baby Clara!

 

First view... :)

Our growing family of seven!

They were all thrilled to meet Clara! 

Getting Clara dressed in the morning.

When the old baby gets promoted to BIG brother and looks huge! (And when little baby had a blowout and all I had was a size 18 month onesie in the diaper bag...)  

We've enjoyed all of our many visitors! 

I'm in love with that red-tinted hair!

After Clara's arrival, the next thing on the agenda was welcoming her cousin Charlotte into the world eight days later!

Aren't they sweet??

The seven Massner grandchildren!

Two little guys became big brothers (for some reason they wanted to swap babies for this picture)!

These little girls are already the best of friends! 

More later...just thought I should make Clara's presence known! :) Things are going very well transitioning home. She has been an amazing baby, we've been getting plenty of help, and I have felt very well. God's grace is always sufficient, as we have learned many times over!

Thank you all for the prayers and support as we welcome home our new addition!