We Four Bees: Emerson Cleire Bondurant

Emerson Cleire graced us with her presence on April 11, 2011 at 12:58 pm. Though it took a little effort to get her here, her arrival was beautiful and Matt and I again found ourselves amazed at the process of childbirth and how human beings are brought into this world. This was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Doesn't she look like Ford in this picture?

Again this time around Matt was a stalwart partner. Without going into great detail of the responsibilities he assumed, I will simply say that he's the greatest husband and father that I and my children could have.

At birth Emerson weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 inches long. She has a little head of brown hair and what appear, for now, to be blue eyes. She's absolutely gorgeous as we knew she would be. Her name derives from a few sources. We knew we wanted a strong name just as we had with Ford. Matt and I are both fans of the writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and we love the names Emme and Emmy (Matt has an Aunt Emmy Lee). Her middle name, as I alluded to in an earlier post, comes from the Cape Cleire Island off the coast of Ireland which figures prominently in Matt's next book, The Night Swimmer. Matt and I visited this island over the summer when Matt swam in the open-water Beginnish Island Swim. It is a beautiful and serene place with a tremendous amount of history and it is also where we found out that we were going to be parents again.

Ford is thrilled to be a big brother. He loves to kiss Emerson and is fascinated by her tiny diaper and umbilical cord. We are working on being "gentle" and "soft" with the baby. He's recently added "Baby Sister" to the growing list of things he's thankful for in his bedtime prayer.

Matt and I would like to thank my mom and my cousin, Elizabeth, for all the help they offered in taking care of Ford and taking care of us by bringing food and keeping us company during our hospital stay. Things would have been quite a bit more complicated had we not had family to help us out.

There will certainly be more pictures to come but for now I will just leave with you with a few of our little beauty, her proud brother, and our new family of four Bees.

Stacy

PS - I will be posting more pictures on Shutterfly and will put a link to the album in a future post. So make sure to check back in a few days!