Kayla Grace Kovanda

Here I sit in a quiet, empty house, with my sweet baby girl sleeping soundly in her bassinet. So, blog, here I go...

Our beautiful miracle baby was born last Wednesday, September 1st at 8:52pm! She weighed 5lbs, 11 oz and was 19 inches long.

The last 10 days have been some of the most incredible days of my life. Maybe I am in the "honeymoon" phase of being a new mom, but I love everything about being a mom. Snuggles with my sweet girl, even the late night feedings and sleepless nights. It's all worth it when I look into her eyes and am reminded each time that life is truly a gift-and one that we can't or shouldn't take for granted.

May 1st of this year, we weren't sure if we would ever get to hold and love on our sweet girl. We committed her into the Lord's hands each day and prayed that we would have the privilege and opportunity to get to raise her. God always answers our prayers-but sometimes they are not as WE would hope. Just 4 months later, on September 1st, He answered our prayers as we had hoped as we welcomed her into this world.

He answered our prayers in more ways than we could have hoped for. I feel unworthy and so blessed to have this opportunity. Each time I look at her, I just can't believe He has entrusted her to us. What a privilege and responsibility.

It is strange not being pregnant. Besides the stress of not knowing if everything was going to be ok, I really loved being pregnant. It was such an amazing experience to feel her growing and moving inside me. Now, sometimes, I look at where my belly was and wonder if it will move. Ha!

My labor and delivery went pretty well. We ended up going up to the hospital in the very early hours of the morning on the 1st because I was having really bad upper abdominal pain, and I wasn't sure what it was. By the time we got to the hospital, I was having more contractions, but baby's heart rate dropped. The doctor didn't want me to go home as I was over 38 weeks. And of all weeks...my doctor was on vacation. After all we had been through-and now he wasn't here to deliver my baby. I was devastated, but realized that everything happens in God's timing, and for some reason, His timing was for us to have this baby without our doctor. We were so thankful for Dr. Hilton, though-he was great!

Anyway, I had to be induced, which baby's heart rate didn't like. I was taken off the pit at one point for her to recover. I labored for a few hours without my epidural, but with the pit, the contractions were coming really intensely, every 2ish minutes. He said it could take all day. I decided at that point that if I wanted to have any energy left for delivery, I needed some medication! Dr. Fern was right, though. He said the pain I experienced from my ovarian torsion would be worse than my labor and delivery. I would take the labor and delivery pain over my torsion pain any day!

Once we let her heart rate recover, they put me back on the pit and increased it very slowly. It took most of the day to dialate from a 2 to a 4. By 7pm, the doctor came and broke my water. Within 10 minutes, I was dilated to a 9! Things started happening very fast. There are several details I don't really need to go in to, but I ended up pushing for about an hour and a half, and Kayla arrived at 8:52pm! I was so thankful to have had her vaginally. There were several points throughout the day that pointed to us possibly having a c-section. Let's just say it was a very real possibility. I ended up having a placental abruption (which is what was causing my bleeding all day), and that was another reason he wanted to get my labor going.

She is beautiful. She is loved. Her grandparents and aunt and uncle were there to welcome her into this big world. Mommy's heart couldn't get any fuller than when I watched her daddy hold her and then give her to me for the first time. I will never forget that moment as long as I live.

So for now, we eat, we sleep and she poops a lot. :) We love. And then love some more. We count it all joy for we know that "every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the father of lights" James 1:17