Beauty, Dignity and Fruitfulness have been born
and her name is Olive. Olive Charlotte. It was in the top ten in the 1880's. Classic. Sweet. And full of the meaning above. Everything I hope for my daughter. And I love the idea of calling her Liv - but it comes out of a deep fondness of Olive and have really taken to calling her Olive first. That's her name.
It was the olive branch that the dove brought back in the book of Genesis after the Flood - meaning peace and wellness and fruitfulness have again been restored to the earth.
The Mount of Olives is frequently mentioned in the New Testament as the route from Jerusalem to Bethany and the place where Jesus stood when he wept over Jerusalem. Jesus is said to have spent time on the mount, teaching and prophesying to his disciples (Matthew 24–25), including the Olivet discourse, returning after each day to rest, and also coming there on the night of his betrayal (Matthew 26:39). At the foot of the Mount of Olives lies the Garden of Gethsemane. The New Testament, tells how Jesus and his friends sang together – "When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives" Gospel of Matthew 26:30. Jesus ascended to heaven from the Mt of Olives as recorded in the book of Acts 1:9–12.
And if you stare at Olive - just rearrange two vowels and you have Ilove.
iLoVE
oLiVE
I love Olive. ;) (if you want more on how we decided between names - she was unnamed for 12 hours - just ask)
So the day before I worked my one and only preschool day this fall for a while, wanting to give Robby a sharing day before I would have this baby, every mom that day said I "looked like I could have her any minute" not sure what that meant, but they were right.
And then there's my mom - she had called Sept 15 back in the spring with my dad - placing ego bets on when I would go into labor. She even refused to go on a trip to Florida with my dad this week, knowing I would go into labor. How strange. That would have been 3 weeks before my due date. Sometimes grandmas just know.
And on Sept 15, when I reached official full term (according to my charts - though she actually measured 36 weeks when she came out) my water started to trickle round 9:45am. Hmmm....labor? Really?
Started feeling contractions around 12:30 in the afternoon (after calling my husband 17 times to get a hold of him - he was in waders on a shoot in the Maumee River with no phone) and my neighborhood pitched in to help with Robby (thanks, Jamie!) and my parents were soon in route to get him.
I thought, after a 5 hour labor with Robby, that we would go fast on number 2.
Nope.
I get it. I get why drugs are awesome. But I chose natural and natural I was going to go. I was going to win this thing - though at several parts I felt like my body was beating me. My Labor Team was amazing: Sandy and Rob. Sandy is a labor and delivery nurse and was my coach - and Rob and her were a force. I spent most of 9 hours on the birthing ball while I memorized the outline of Sandy's lips as she breathed me through a contraction. Rob would counter push on my back labor to relieve pain.
It. Was. So. Hard. (going to post on my going natural choice soon)
I know it's too soon - but I really don't want to push anything like that out again in my life. 12 hours is way too long. I would labor for 3 hours and not have progressed at all. They kicked in pitocin and things came fast and furious - but slow all at the same time. Yawza.
My mom missed her bet by 45 minutes - she was born Sept 16 at 12:46 am. 6 lbs on the dot. 20 inches. Amazing and perfect and feminine in every way. Little Olive, welcome.
Here's a small chronological of that 48 hours in photos:
