My grandma, Dorothea Lovena (as she wanted...Dorothy Lovina) Tilt Kimball, passed away this morning. She was an angel on earth and loved EVERYBODY. She was 80 years old.
In celebration of being one month old yesterday, and in celebration of johns 16th birthday yesterday, Ruby wore her cupcake outfit.
Richard Paul Evans spoke in my aunts stake last night so my mom and laura and I went. It was good and nice to get out and sit still and quiet. Ruby slept. Laura gave her this hat with some adorable boots. The outfit from my aunt sandy. The blanket made by my mom.
Believe it or not, she smiles.
3 weeks old and she has smiled at us several times today.
It starts with us smiling and talking to her.
She gets a little twinkle in her eye.
Her lips start to curve.
Then it happens.
A full blown smile that covers her face.
It's adorable.
And twice, a little "goo" came with it.
It's so heavenly when they first start interacting.
She stares at us thoughtfully.
She is a sweet and pleasant baby.
And she's beautiful.
We sure love her.
For record keeping sake:
She sleeps a lot. She wakes up late in the evening and stays awake until between 12 and 2am. Her tummy is tight and she's restless and breaths fast and heavy and it's sad.
She will sometimes take a bink and that helps but mostly gags on it and spits it out.
We did it. We just went ahead and named her Ruby Sue. Ha. Ruby Sue is the daughter of Cousin Eddie on Christmas Vacation and I just couldn't bring myself to name her that. Even though that little girl is cute and sweet, my family has this thing with Christmas Vacation and I knew we couldn't do that to ourselves and name our child the same name as Cousin Eddies daughter. Well, we did it anyway. The day after we brought her home, we still weren't sure what to name her so I suggested we just start calling her something and see what happens. (We did this with Leah. We called her Ellie for a couple day but it just didn't feel right. She was Leah. I knew that since being in the hospital but waited for John to get on board. His thoughts weren't in it so she just went nameless for a while. Thanks to Emily to had inspiration with Leah. She said to me one day "I want her to be Ellie but I feel like she is Leah". I cried. She was right. I was grateful for her inspiration.)
Anyway, back to Ruby. John said we should call her Elsie. I said that we should probably start with Ruby. We did. I prayed like crazy and within an hour, we knew her name was Ruby. And not just Ruby but Ruby Sue. John's parents called her Ruby Jane and although we loved that, we think it was "Jane" that was holding us back on the whole name. When we finally went with Ruby Sue, it felt right. I called the hospital and we made it official.
My grandma even called me one day and told me NOT to name her Ruby. She said it is an old, old, old, old name and her mother was called Ruby booby. Ha. Luckily these days, there are so many weird names that kids don't really think to call names anymore. And the name Ruby, 100 years later, is coming back. Ruby is my great grandma Tilt's name and we lived in her house when we first got married. Ruby is my birthstone. And Ruby is John's grandma's sisters name. It's a good name for her and it fits her well.
She looks like she is going to have red hair and blue eyes. We'll see what happens.
So, her birth story is a lot like Leah's as far as timing goes. On Friday the 20th, contractions started picking up a bit. John and I walked around WalMart and I kept thinking tomorrow was the day. It just felt like something was happening. I went to bed that night. (unlike with Leah's labor when I stayed up most the night cleaning and doing laundry). I felt contractions through the night. They stopped the next morning and I told John we needed to stay busy and walk around. So we went to Wal Mart and Costco and walked around. We bought a few things but for the most part, we were ready for this baby. I had to stop every 8-10 minutes to bend over or lean up against something because the contractions were painful. One time at Costco, I was leaning against one of the freezers and a lady came up and needed to get in the freezer. I excused myself and walked away, wanting to say "I'm just getting ready to have a baby".
We came home and I laid down for a little bit because I was feeling exhausted but contractions slowed down too so I got myself back up and cleaned up the kitchen and made Pretzel Jello Salad for John's family Christmas party that night. I had kept tracked of contractions since the night before. It was fun to see the progression on paper. How far apart and how long they lasted. After everything was done and ready, I came back upstairs and pretty quick the contractions started coming quicker. I was nervous about getting to the hospital in time because I had to go to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake this time and with Leah, I barely made it in time. (We got to the hospital and had to wait for the doctor but she was born within 20 minutes of getting there.)
I called John upstairs and told him it was time. They were close and they hurt. I started packing my bag and that's when he realized I was serious. He started making the baby bed and finally I said he had to stop and we needed to leave. He got it all set up for John's parents to come pick up our kids and the salad for the family party, we hugged the kids, and we left. We got to the hospital around 5:00 and I was dilated to a 7. They asked if I wanted an epidural. I loved not having one with Leah. It was one of the neatest experiences of my life so I had to think about it. Finally I realized I was in a lot of pain, I wasn't enjoying it, I was exhausted from the contractions and pain and busyness of the last 24 hours and decided to get one. It was the best decision. I had one hour of relaxation until the baby was ready. I could feel it was time and called the nurse in, they got everything set up, called the doctor and as soon as he said to push on the next contraction, we all just sat there waiting. There was no contraction coming. It was kind of funny and I hated the position my body was in while we were waiting for that silly contraction. Finally, it came and with just a couple pushes, she was here. She struggled to get good color and breath right so they warmed her up and waited til she was pink before giving her back to me.
It was wonderful and quick and I'm so glad I had the epidural. I'm glad I stayed home as long as I did before going in. It couldn't have gone any better.
It's amazing that we can fall in love so quickly. After six kids, and how hard this pregnancy was, how nervous I was at adding another child, I fell in love instantly. She belongs in our family. She's a part of us.
The epidural wore off really fast and I quickly fell right back to normal. It was wonderful to feel so good through the whole thing. Including after.
She's wearing the same sweet little gown little John wore home from the hospital 16 years ago. It's clouds and sunshines, all 7 of my babies have worn it, and I LOVE it.
