Friday, February 28, 2020

Jenna Charis Patty

As soon as JV marriage retreat in Krakow finished at noon today, two grandmas and an aunt made their way down to Ostrava to see our precious new granddaughter and niece, Jenna Charis Patty!


Haley's mom and dad serve with us in JV, so were at the marriage retreat, as was Claire, who was there caring for our littlest JV kids.

But now, we had the joy of meeting the newest JVK...and our precious family member!


Jenna was born yesterday evening at 7 PM, in a relatively quick birth - four hours of labor for Haley. She'd arrived at the hospital around noon, but labor didn't kick in fully for a few hours.


What kindness of the Lord to bring her into this world so smoothly! It was sweet hearing the story from Caleb and Haley.


It's an amazing privilege to share a granddaughter with a friend I've known for thirty years!


In case you don't know that story, I'll just say that we first met Mark and Amy when they were students at Moody in the late 1980's! We met again when Mark went on staff at a supporting church of ours in Fort Collins, Colorado. Through the years we'd see them when we came back to visit the church, and when Caleb and Haley were 14 and 15, we went over to their house for breakfast and...as they say...the rest is history!


Now we share two precious grandchildren, and all live on this side of the ocean, doing life and ministry together. God is so good!


Aunty Claire was able to join in on this celebratory day too of meeting Jenna!


And we all got to see Ally, Haley's sister, (and Amy's daughter!) who was caring for Charlie while Jenna was being born.


Only a few visitors were supposed to be in the room at the time, so Ally and Charlie were hanging out in the waiting area when we first came to visit.

But just as we were arriving back on the maternity ward, with Charlie between Amy and I, we found out that Haley and Jenna were being moved to a room of their own!


That means that over the next few days, we can all come to visit without having to worry about visiting hours, or the number of people in the room at one time. There are only a few private rooms, and it's "first come, first served" so you never know if it will be available. What a blessing that it is for Haley and Jenna!


Charlie's got a good sense of who Jenna is, and loves saying her name, and that she's his sister! This is the first (of what I'm sure will be many!) picture that I took of them together!


Jenna weighed 8 pounds, and came out about as perfect as a baby can! She's already nursing well, sleeping a lot, and just as cute as can be.


It's no longer hospital policy to measure a baby at birth, so we don't actually know that detail. They said they'll do it before she leaves, but they don't like to stretch them out when they're first born.

Another interesting detail is that they no longer clean off the vernix (the white, waxy substance they come out with) when the baby is born. Caleb and Haley told us it dissolved into Jenna's skin within about 4 hours, leaving her skin to look glowingly beautiful!


Seeing the four of them together, with Jenna here in the world, looks so natural! We are all so thankful for this precious family of ours.


And in case you're wondering...the two grandpas will get to visit tomorrow!

Mark had to take some JV staff back to Zilina, Slovakia, and Dave had to stay in Krakow with the group visiting here from the States. They're anxious to meet their granddaughter soon!

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