Welcome to the world, Harper Elizabeth!

Harper Elizabeth Hempkins is finally here!

She was born Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 1:20 pm.  She weighed 8 pounds even and was 20 inches long.  

We went in to be induced on Thursday morning at 7:30.  I was 4 centimeters, so they gave me pitocin and said we'd wait until 5 or 6 centimeters for the epidural.  Right away, she asked if I'd been feeling contractions.  Even though I hadn't felt them, it turns out I'd been having contractions for quite a while.  I assumed it was just Harper moving into a very uncomfortable position.  Oh well.  Within an hour, I began to have much more severe contractions.  She went to turn the pitocin down and realized that I had jumped from 4 to 6 centimeters in 1 hour.  So I went ahead and got the epidural.  Now-let me just say-that epidural is sweet.  It doesn't hurt (they numb you first) and it makes the pain go away.  Why you would choose to suffer through labor with no pain relief is crazy to me.  But anyways, so by now the family is starting to arrive.  They wanted to come visit, go grab lunch and come back in the afternoon.  My sweet nurse, Jessica, thought I'd be delivering somewhere between 3 and 5.  But by 11:30 am, things changed very quickly.  A nurse came in saying that Harper's heart rate had dropped too low and they were going to try and move me around to figure out what was going on.  We sent the family to lunch while they were adjusting me.  Within 2 minutes, I suddenly had 5 nurses surrounding me trying to get Harper's heart rate back up.  They just couldn't figure out what it was.  So they checked, and suddenly I was 10 centimeters and 100% ready to go!  It had only taken 1 hour to get from 6 to 10, which is very quick.  This sudden change was what was stressing little baby Harper out.  So we sent word to the family that she was coming and started pushing.  I pushed for about 10 minutes and took a break.  Then the doctor said that if I couldn't push her out in the next set of contractions, they were going to have to use the vacuum (a cone head baby!) or take her by c-section.  So I started pushing again and within 10 minutes she was born!  What a relief!  Funny enough, I didn't even have to push her out.  The doctor told me to push and then said, "Nevermind, she came out on her own."  Such a big girl!  Then, NICU checked her and she was absolutely perfect.  She just didn't like all the sudden changes (she's way too much like her mama).  

Here are some pictures of her birth day.  

My labor and delivery nurse, Jessica 

Getting her first bath (not such a happy time!)

Well hello beautiful blue eyes...

Sleeping with Daddy - the first of hundreds 

 What a beautiful girl!

My sisters Carleigh and Taylor hanging out in the waiting room 

Her door sign made by Marcie Hatfield 

Our church has taken care of us SO well.  We love FBC Lewisville!

My sister Kristen got to meet her first.  She was only 1 hour old! 

Never knew how much you can fall in love in an instant.  My sweet baby.

So pretty.  Baby and Mama.

She has all ten fingers and all ten toes.

Our sweet little family.

The family all came to visit.

My parents and sisters 

Cody's parents

My sister and brother in law, Kristen and Brian

All the girls in the family (missing Michaela).  

Aunties

Crazy uncles Eric and Dane 

They drove up from Austin to meet Harper and had to drive back 3 hours later 

for breakfast service of Short Bus.  Such great uncles! 

Grandpa Gary (or Padre or PeePaw or PopPop...we'll see)

My parents, Mark and Kathryn

My parents, Gary and Kristi

All the kids missing Michaela and Grayson.  We'll have to paste them in.

Kristen planted beautiful pink flowers in honor of Harper's birthday.  

I hear Brian even helped with his pink gardening spade. 

  

 The KU boys with Harper and her new KU beanie from KK.  

Sadly, this is as close as she'll get to KU since she's going to A&M.

Gig 'em Ags!

Next Blog will be Harper's 1st week - it was definitely entertaining and a learning experience.  It includes tons of love, poop, and burning the midnight oil!!!

Harper's Room

 So Harper's room is pretty much done - which is so exciting!  Here are some pictures of the big stuff in her room.

 Her crib with the bedding I made.  It's brown, hot pink, and a soft green.  

Her new owl mobile which I love!  It matches but adds a good splash of color too.

We painted her name on the wall and made an open frame in vintage creme and pink.  It was fun to learn to make the frame look old with layers of paint.  Cody is a pro now.

 Her bookshelf which is now filled with tons of books.  Including Harry the Dog, If you give a Mouse a Cookie, and my favorite - Wayside Story is Falling Down.  Plus her hip diaper bag and her cool dress form.

 This is my sweet lounge chair.  I just made new pillows and it's going to be so comfortable.  I may "forget" to go back to bed after the midnight feeding.  :)

Also got this cool basket for storage, a lamp, a sound machine/clock, and we put the cool owl print on the wall.  It's a pretty good corner.

 Here are her floating shelves.  A big thank you to my amazing husband for being able to recreate my vision even when everyone else said it was too hard.  Aren't they great!  They are 4 in think and 6 in wide and made of cedar.  I absolutely love them.  We put baby pictures of us up, plus a maternity photo.  I just think they are so sweet!

 I love the thought behind being a "Daughter of the King."  Such a powerful thing to know that once we are saved, we are heirs with Christ and children of God.  Such a blessing!  So my friend Nikki came to visit last week and painted this canvas for her room. 

 Um...  So she has lots of bows, headbands, etc.  It might have gotten a little out of control.  But to be fair, most of these were gifts.  You know women and cute, tiny, pink things - they just can't help themselves.  We had an old memo board and we recovered it with a silky, cream fabric, hot pink ribbon, and buttons.  We added hooks on the bottom and voila!  It was actually pretty simple and I'm pretty proud.

 And last but not least, her closet.  These are her nice outfits (yes all her drawers are full too!).  She has a TON of clothes already, including a Christmas dress and an Easter dress.  This is where we put the old, vintage dresser and most of her extra stuff.  I won't need to shop until at least next spring!

All in all, it's a great room.  I think Harper is going to love growing up in there.  Plus, it's done - which is the best part!  We went to the doctor today and we are definitely progressing.  Hopefully she'll come soon and my next post with have her in it! 

2 Showers in 1 Day

On Saturday, June 4th I had two showers.  The morning shower was with my church friends.  Mostly bible study girls and a few awesome growth group girls (the bible study Chelsea and I teach of highschool girls).  The afternoon shower was with Denison friends and family.  Both were so fun and I have never been so happy or tired in all my life!  

Church Shower hosted by Michelle Wade, Anne Heffington, Aimee Rosier, and Chelsea Johnson

 Starting to unwrap presents - Devin (Growth Groups), Mom, Me, and Amy Eck

 Hanging Out - Amy Eck, Amanda Miller, Aimee Rosier, Ronda Owens, 

Katherine Hunt, Michelle Wade, Chelsea Johnson, and Taylor Klusman

So many gifts for Harper!

Denison Shower with Hempkins' friends and family

 Serena's oreo cake balls - so good

Cousin Kelly (and Tessa) and Aunt Kita

 Serena, Me, and Nelda

Mom, Carleigh, Taylor, Me, Kristi, and Grayson

Thankfully my family came to both showers and spent ALL day with me.

So nice of them!!!

Grayson the Conqueror was flirting a little too much with Lydia Duff. 

 

  Awesome diaper cake from Wendy

So many wonderful gifts that day.  It was absolutely amazing.  

Harper is seriously ready to go!

My husband's new hobby

These are some maternity pictures that my husband took a few weeks ago.  He is pretty talented with the camera, don't you think?  

This one is my favorite.  

This one is his favorite.  I was laughing at my sisters.  They are always funny.

Even though this isn't a maternity picture, we spent the most time by this tree.  He really wanted to get a close up of the butterflies.  This tree at my parent's house in Argyle is a butterfly magnet.  They literally swarm it day and night.  If you walk over to it and stand really still, they will land on you too.

This one is at the square in Denton.

Here are some of the first pictures he ever did.  He just started this spring.  Isn't it amazing how some people are just natural at it?  I am thoroughly impressed.

We took these two in Denison and they just turned out so well.  I was very against being photographed because I was pregnant but was only showing enough to look chunky.  

Love the bridge picture.  Possibly one of my all time favs.

 Aw, sweet Maggie girl.  A pretty good picture of a psychotic dog.  

Carleigh and Taylor have been dying for photo shoots lately.  They went out around old town Lewisville and the lake by our house.  

Taylors' real smile.  Love it.

Grayson's bathtime.  Sometimes I think he's identical to McCool.  Sometimes I think Eric.  Either way, he's by far the absolute cutest baby ever!  And he's turning 1 this week.  What a big boy!

I just think my hubby's so good at taking pictures!  And now I have a personal photographer at my fingertips any time I want.  Poor Harper is going to be having photo shoots every other day!  

So all in all, it's been a good run.  35 weeks along and so close to done!  I see a light at the end of the tunnel...