Grace is here!

And all is well. She's just a little over 24 hours old, and the tiniest little thing! Her head fits right in my palm--grapefruit sized. When Jason brought the kids up to meet her yesterday, it struck me anew how huge they are in comparison! I mean, Nate just looked like a Mack truck or something.

I'll post more details and pics later--I just wanted to thank everyone for their emails, blogments (did I make up a word?), calls and most of all, prayers. I don't think childbirth could've gone much more smoothly than this. Thanks also to Becky for her sweet post and all the Suburban Matron readers! It was so sweet to read what y'all wrote. We are off to a pretty good start and I am feeling great. I love this hospital--I gotta tell you. They are really wonderful here. The nurses are all just so friendly and so helpful--it's like having all these moms and big sisters around. They call me "sweetheart" and bring me tea. It feels a little like summer camp. But with stitches, less sleep and no mosquitoes. Can I stay forever?

A few years ago, when Nate was still a baby, I was sitting up in bed one night, and had this thought: Your next child will be a girl, and you should name her Grace Elaine. Another baby wasn't really on the radar yet for us, so I tucked that thought away for later. But when we found out that #3 was a girl, we had our name. Elaine is my amazing mama's middle name, and I can think of no better person to name a child after. And Grace--well, grace is one of my favorite ideas/concepts/truths. Realization of what grace is has changed my life forever. So I love that our new baby daughter will be a reminder of that for me.

I just want to include this little "definition" of grace from a spiritual perspective. I love the way that Frederick Buechner worded this, and it's this amazing truth that comes to mind when I think of why we named our little one Grace.

"After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.

The grace of God means something like: 'Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.'

There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can only be yours if you'll reach out and take it.

Maybe being to reach out and take it is a gift too.”


More later. Love y'all!