Olivia Rayne

I just realized that I had not posted anything about my new granddaughter! Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of my family, Olivia Rayne Allen. "Liv" was born at 0149h on Friday, April 9, 2010. She weighed 5 lbs 8 oz, and was 19 inches long. These statistics give a false impression, because this little girl is tiny!!

My daughter, Lisa, labored for 92 hours and 16 minutes before she gave birth to Liv at home with the assistance of her midwife. Liv is the second Allen child to be born at home. Lisa's first child, Katie, was born in a hospital. As the grandmother, I have to say that the homebirth experience has been a very good one, especially for my daughter.

Lisa's long labor was due to the fact that Liv had her elbow sticking up near her head as she descended the birth canal. That elbow was pushing against Lisa's cervix, and her body's natural reaction was to keep stalling out her labor because it knew something wasn't quite right/ready. The midwife had to manually help Lisa's cervix move out of the way so that Liv could be born; the midwife who helped Lisa birth Katie in the hospital had to do the same thing with that birth. With the cervix out of the way, Liv was born with just two pushes!

When I first saw Olivia, she was about an hour old. My first words when I saw her were (to Lisa) "whose child is this??" LOL She had a head full of hair, something unheard of in our family. I thought for sure she'd switched her child for someone else's! :-)

My oldest granddaughter, Katie, and my grandson, Aiden, are enjoying the newest member of the family. Katie, age 5, had some meltdown time the first few days, as she realized she wasn't getting the Mommy time she thought she should right then. Lisa has done a good job of spending quality time with her as much as she can to help ease that problem. Katie likes to be a Little Mother to both Aiden and Olivia. She's even thanked her Mommy for giving her a little sister! Aww...

Aiden, age 21 months, has been just fascinated with the new baby! That is, until he realized that he was going to have to share "boobies" with his new little sister. Aiden is still breastfed, and until Olivia was born, it was mostly at night at bedtime. Not anymore! He doesn't like sharing too much as far as his Mommy goes, so Lisa has been having to nurse both Olivia and Aiden. How's that working, you ask? Hhmmm, not very easily, I assure you. (Lisa, you're a better woman than me.) The result has been that skinny little Aiden ain't so skinny anymore! He has really chunked up in the last 7 days, getting all that nutrition he hasn't been used to. I'm sure he'll run off all the calories with no problem.


Katie named me, her maternal grandmother, "Nana" (pronounced "nawnuh"). Aiden decided he would call me "Nawnee", which will probably change as he gets older. I wonder what this third little angel is going to call me? Aww, who cares? She can call me whatever she wants to, as long as it's nice. I love my grandbabies very much, and I wouldn't give them up for anything in the world. I am very grateful to my daughter, who I also love dearly, for bringing such joy into my life.