It's a Girl!

The nice thing about having labor induced is that you can plan ahead a bit.  I spent Wednesday cleaning, paying bills, and generally getting our home ready to welcome baby.  

On Thursday morning we had to wake early to bring the kids to their Nana and Grandpa's house.  They were thrilled to be allowed to travel in their pajamas. (I love how simple changes to their routine are such a big thrill to them!)  

Knowing that labor could take a while my sweetheart brought along the morning paper and lots of coffee - our first was also induced, and we remembered the long day of waiting. Anticipation and excitement make the time seem to go by in a strange way; fast but slow at the same time. We were so excited to welcome our tiny daughter to our family and just couldn't wait to see her little face. 

We arrived at the hospital for 7AM, they broke my water at 7:30 and then started me on Pitocin at 8:30. The nurse had trouble starting my IV and had to stick me a few times.  She joked that she would take two hours off of my labor as compensation - since the doctor said that he expected her to be born by 3PM, that moved our timeline to 1PM: sounded good to me! 

Our little girl didn't respond very well to the labor - every contraction caused her heart rate to drop, so I was confined to the single position that she seemed to do best in for the next few hours - writing that out makes it seem much more dramatic than it was, I was fairly comfortable most of the time and she wasn't in any danger. I had been concerned about having back labor because baby was flipped backward, but she was able to turn herself around at about 11:00, a great answer to prayer. 

Finally at 1:21 our little lady entered the world!  She had to be examined by a NICU doctor right away because there was meconium in her waters.  They took her before she even had a chance to cry and suctioned her lungs.  This photo shows much more than I could see of what was happening:

Daddy got a better view.

  

After ten minutes she was doing great and the doctors had finished with all of their tests and procedures so I was allowed to (finally!) hold my daughter.

Bliss!

And here she is ~ Pink, Healthy, and Wonderful!

8 pounds 1 &1/2 ounces

19 and 3/4 inches long

It doesn't get any better than this!