She's Here!

Our baby girl is here.  :-)  She was born on Friday, December 7th at 10:47 a.m., weighing in at 8 lbs. 14 oz., 20 3/4 inches.  I would love to post a picture for you to see, but we got a new camera and I have no clue how to use it.  My husband has taken all the pictures so far and the pictures are on his computer.  I hope to get some of them from him tomorrow night so I can post them for you to see!  She is beautiful.  :-)

The reason I can't get any pictures from my Husband is that he has been working major overtime since Second Daughter (Sophia) was born.  This is the perfect example of how our year has gone.  ;-)  But our hope is that within the next two days, this project that he has to finish ASAP will be done and he will be able to take off for the rest of the year.  The big blessing in all of this is my parents.  If they weren't here right now, we have no clue how we would survive this time.

This birth was by far the easiest I have ever experienced.  If you're a fan of epidurals, you'll totally enjoy this story.  If not, you might shake your head and sigh over me.  LoL 

On the Tuesday before the induction, at my OB appointment, my doctor told me I was 3 cm dilated.  When I showed up at the hospital on Friday to be induced, the nurse checked me first thing, and I was dilated to between a 4 1/2 and 5!!!  I couldn't believe it.  My first thought was that an epidural is usually given once a mom is 4 cm.  So I asked my nurse if I could go ahead and get the epidural right then and there so I wouldn't have to go through the trauma of getting it while in the middle of agonzing contractions.  Made sense to me, made sense to my nurse, and it obviously made sense to my OB because she gave the go-ahead.  So my nurse started the pitocin, gave the anesthesiologist a ring, and he showed up before the contractions became anything more than annoying.  This was between 8:30 and 9 a.m.  After that, I spent my time watching the intensity of my contractions on the monitor and First and Only Husband, who was getting a cold!, got a little work done on his laptop.  It was the most surreal experience of my life.  It was so calm - almost boring!  Finally around 10:30 my OB came in and let me try a few pushes which brought Second Daughter down into position.  She and our nurse broke down the table for delivery, I pushed through three or four contractions, and there she was!  And OH MY GOODNESS she is so beautiful.  And we are tickled because she looks a lot like First Daughter.  I can't wait to see them all grown up together.  What a blessing God has given us in our girls. 

I stayed in the hospital until Sunday morning.  I was really ready to go home on Saturday but everyone kinda wigs out over the mother with five kids and insisted I stay one more day so I could "get some rest."  If God chooses to bless us again, I think I'll just come home next time, although I did enjoy the time alone with Second Daughter.  My windows overlooked the busy interstate and other roads and it felt so cozy to look out at all the traffic going here and there, realizing that Second Daughter and I were snug in our room on the top floor with just a few people going in and out, making sure we were both healthy and happy.

Hopefully I'll have pictures tomorrow!  :-)