Baby GIRL Rauch was born at 4:34pm, weighing 8 pounds 9.6 ounces.

Baby girl was born via emergency C-section. It was scary and sudden. But it is now over.

The autocorrect feature on my phone is driving me nuts. For some reason, when I finger swipe the word “appointments”, the word “southerness” comes up.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had more “southerness” than I could have ever imagined.

These are the words that the doctor used to describe me on my latest report.

I think I have finally decoded what these adjectives mean.

It has been awhile since I posted about Baby Ocho.

Things have kicked into high gear around here with weekly appointments, tests, and scans. Ocho will join us in exactly one month. I am scheduled to arrive at 5:00am on October 14 for an induction. Thankfully, my sister is an early riser and will scramble me out of bed and out the door.

These days, I’m moving at the pace of a sloth and with the grace of an orangutan.

That’s quite a combo. Not exactly the National Geographic jackpot.

Two weeks ago, Sam and I met the man who will save Baby Ocho’s life.

It was humbling. And sobering. And encouraging.

“Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last week, Kathleen was in a series of doctors’ offices all by herself under the name of Rauch.”

Wasn’t that a great opening to this blog post? But don’t think me clever. I re-adapted the line, after brazenly stealing it, from A.A. Milne’s brilliant book Winnie the Pooh. But I like the sound of it.

I recently had a follow-up echo with the pediatric cardiologist.

There was some good news. A little glimmer of hope.