Meet Liana-Roze Meghan Cole

The last few days have been pretty busy, but not with work. No, that's not quite true. I have been diligent to maintain and monitor the circumstances at work. Actually, the busy-ness has come from the birth of our fourth baby, Liana-Roze who joined our family on Tuesday afternoon. It was Sharlene's birthday on Tuesday and now we have 2 girls in the family with the same birthday.

We chose 'Liana' mainly because of its meaning: 'God has answered'. In an indigenous dialect it also means: 'vine'. So another meaning is 'Rose vine' or 'climbing rose' as I like to think of it. Of course, the 'z' is in theme with the boyz' namez. We also discovered that Liana's name reversed roughly resembles, 'Roseanne Lee', which is Sharlene's sister's name.

The pains started that morning but didn't progress very fast. About midday, I took Shar to the hospital to see the midwife who kept us there for a little while, walking the hallways and climbing stairs sideways, 2 steps at a time. That didn't seem to do much, but after a short sleep, Sharlene woke up with everything starting to move along quickly.

Liana was born at 5:03pm, after two hours of serious labour. Her birth weight was 7.03lb or 3.320kg. Her length was 49cm and head circumference was 33cm. All these things combined to make her a much smaller package than our previous children. Sharlene is relishing the opportunity to have a child that 'looks' like a baby a little longer, and she is so very happy that she has a little girl.

Both Sharlene and the baby are going well and after the birth, we stayed in the hospital for about 5 hours before being discharged to go home. Shar's parents had collected the boys from school and kindy that day and Zemiel, Azariah and Zekiah were asleep when we stopped by to show off our newest addition.

The next morning we went over to Pop and Nuna's house early. We showed her to the boys and took video of their reactions. They loved her from the start and have been so gentle with her. With the exception of Zekiah who doesn't know his own strength, but is trying to be kind and share his toys.

Throughout the pregnancy, Sharlene's mantra has been that she would not be dressing the new bub in pink. However, of the past three days, 2 of them had Liana dressed in pink. Sharlene says that the colour was 'apricot' not pink, or "that's what we were given" but I know the truth is that she can't resist dressing her up like a little doll.

Liana surely does somehow get the hiccups frequently enough and has fed well and frequently since soon after birth.

She now has a phobia of flash photography.

Okay. Now the pictures:

This one is of Liana shortly after she was born.

 The midwife took this picture.

Liana's fingers were still blue when we took this photo of her gripping Sharlene's pinkie finger.

My turn, Liana holding onto her daddy.

 Okay. Now we have returned home. Sharlene likes this photo because Liana's outfit matches my red shirt. See, I told you there was one day without pink.

 At home and less than a day old.

The next few photos are of the boys holding Liana for the first time. Here, Zemiel gets his first hold and his words were, "She's so beautiful." Naw!

 Azariah could hardly wait for his turn and he loved every second of it when the time came.

 Zekiah has shown a lot of interest in the bub. None of the jealous behaviour as yet, but I am sure it will come.

 Day 2. Sharlene took Liana to visit Busa-nanna. Would've liked a pic of all four generations but obviously someone needed to hold the camera...

Day 3. Nanna Hope and Grandad Frank were having a lunch with their children to celebrate Frank's birthday and their anniversary. We arrived to give the extended family a look.

 Although, Zemiel and Azariah have been at school and kindy, Zekiah has been dragged around with us everywhere. But he doesn't look like he minded.

 And all this takes us to the end of the week. It will be another adventure tomorrow as we go to church for everyone to see. No doubt, many adventures yet to come, but as I'm back at work next week, perhaps not so many photos.

Till next time.