In honor of Jocelyn’s half birthday this week, I decided to finally document her birth story. A mix of video and still photos that John and I took a the hospital, set to music. John and I made the video together and we just love it. I hope you enjoy sharing in this magical time with us as well. I’m so glad we put this together because I can only imagine how incredible this will be to watch as the years go by.

Enough chit chat from me, here’s Jocelyn’s debut:

Jocelyn birth photo slideshow from Betsy King on Vimeo.

Video can be viewed larger HERE.

I just can’t believe she has been here for half a year now. She is just the most precious little baby girl I could have ever dreamed we would be blessed with. We have our sweet boy and our precious little girl and our family just feels so right and so complete. Just like the first song in the video, our family truly feels like home now.

Jocelyn was born via c-section, as was Miles. However, with Miles, I really mourned the fact that I had to have a c-section. It took about two years for me to finally come to peace with the fact that he was breach and that was just the way he was meant to come into the world. This time, with Jocelyn, I accepted and owned our decision to have a c-section and even though I would have loved to have experienced natural birth, this birth story is still so incredibly beautiful to us. When Miles was born he was rushed away to the NICU right away and for various reasons I didn’t get to see him until day after he was born. With Jocelyn, I was able to hold her right away and I was able to nurse her within minutes of her birth, despite having just had surgery. That was the most amazing gift and John captured that in photos, which was yet another precious gift to me.

So even though this birth looks like the farthest thing from natural, It was still beautiful to us and everyone in the room did what they could to keep me in the moment and connected to what was happening. Also, I didn’t know what the sex of the baby was until the moment she was born, so finding out we had a girl the second I met her was one of the most exciting and amazing experiences in my life. I will never forget that moment. (Thank you to John for making me wait!)

I wasn’t sure I wanted to share this video on my blog. There are some pretty intimate images and of course, there is the whole “I have glasses on and look all puffy” excuses floating around, but it was also one of the most awesome days of my life and I love sharing that with people. Also, you know me, I’m an open book, so I’m not one to hold back.

A few of my favorite moments in the video are when I first hold and feed Jocelyn, when Miles walks in the room to see us at the hospital and I love the whole second song, titled “Five Days Old.” The only bummer about the video is we were playing classical music in the room when he came and he felt the need to whisper so as not to disturb the baby, so you can barely hear Miles’s voice. So that’s why we just dubbed music over the video and threw in a few subtitles.

Thanks so much for taking the time to watch this video. I know it’s kind of long, but hope you enjoyed her story. It’s just the beginning of what I know will be a beautiful story.

Music: Feels Like Home by Chantal Kreviazuk and Five Days Old by The Laurie Berkner Band