The Jacklin family: Our new addition

This pregnancy caught us by surprise, but we know we were meant to have this sweet little angel join our family. We also knew that she was going to be our last child. The peace I felt was truly amazing when praying about the decision to have this baby complete our family.

I had a different OB/GYN for this pregnancy than the others since Dr. Matuga retired 6 months after Kira was born, so there were lots of "new" experiences that made things interesting for me. Lots of tests, exams, labs, ultrasounds...even more than with the boys. Come to find out, "Old Eddie" (my previous OB) was REALLY old school and didn't believe in utilizing most of the medical advances in prenatal care. So weird.

We were scheduled for an early morning c-section on Monday, March 19, but got bumped to the Tuesday, the 20th the week before. I had my heart set on being able to say all my children were born on a Monday, but instead had to settle for the fact that they all were born on an even numbered day.

With the kiddies all snug in the beds at home (thanks to Aunt Erin for driving out before the crack of dawn to watch them), we headed to the hospital for the last time to have a baby.

The last time with a pregnant belly

For some reason, everything about this delivery seemed to take longer. I don't know if it was because I was an old pro at this point and knew what was coming next in the process or what. But it was a wonderful experience to know exactly what the doctors and nurses were doing to bring our baby into the world. I think I was more aware of everything going on and perhaps that is why it seemed like everything was taking longer. I wasn't SO drugged up that I was barely present (like with the twins). The best part was being able to hold our youngest daughter while still in recovery. I will never forget the look on her sweet little face when she looked at me. It made my heart melt.

Once serving my time in recovery (a whole 3 hours!) thanks to my naturally low blood pressure, I was wheeled to my room. I panicked a bit when the orderly told me to hop off the gurney and get in bed. Thankfully he was joking, however the nurse who breezed in shortly thereafter informed me that my catheter was being taken out within the next 8 hours and I would be getting out of bed to walk around by 10:00 that night. I laughed at her. Surely I wasn't expected to get out of bed so soon after surgery. It was 36 hours with the boys, 24 hours with Kira, now it would be 12 hours after this one. As crazy as it sounded, and as skeptical as I was, I'm so glad they forced my to get up when they did. My recovery seemed so much faster and less painful than the other two times. I was even able to use my abdominal muscles to sit up/lay down in bed. I think I impressed a nurse or two as I pushed my baby around the maternity wing in her bassinet.

So this was the first time we went to the hospital not knowing which name we were going to give this baby. Eric had declared months earlier that he was going to name this baby since I had named the other 3 kids (since I did ZERO work in cooking them). After trying a few names on for size, Eric decided this was the one he liked best (I was secretly rooting for this particular name).

ELLA KATHERINE JACKLIN

born March 20, 2012 at 8:04 a.m.

5 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 inches