And she's beautiful! We had a lovely (big!) baby girl on November 25, the day before Thanksgiving! She came along at 4:39 p.m., at 8 pounds 15 ounces and 19 3/4 inches (though I dispute that, since she was 21 inches just four days later.) She's in perfect health and nursing like a champ, and sleeping beautifully. I think she'd be inclined to sleep through most of the night if I didn't wake her up to feed her. As a happy aside, Wynnie shares a birthday with Kristi's brand new baby girl too! Fun fact, we also had our showers on the same date. Nothing in common. ;-)
With an incredibly supportive husband and fantastic labor nurse, I made it through all that with no drugs, as I'd hoped, and while I'm sure I made plenty of racket, I managed it with an alarmingly minimal amount of cursing, considering my typical blue streak. (Matter of fact, I only remember one F-bomb, and it was when I was decrying the air conditioning situation - who leaves a delivery room A/C set at EIGHTY???) I went into labor around 4:00 a.m. after about two hours of sleep, labored at home as long as I could, headed to the hospital shortly after noon (and would have sworn I'd been there for much longer than four and a half hours) and delivered her in pretty darn good time. I'd had a doctor's appointment the day before at which he wanted to discuss the c-section necessity if I went a whole lot longer, as I was a week past due when she arrived, and I told him I didn't see the need to discuss it, since I'd be having her the next day. He was as skeptical of my prediction as I was of his c-section and possibility-of-shoulder-dysplasia nonsense (we knew by this point that she was pretty big). So when he walked in to deliver her I hollered, in the midst of full blown delivery labor, "I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE TODAY! HA!!" I appreciate his restraint in not telling me I was in a fine position to be smug, ahem.
It's been a very busy 19 days or so! Travis had two weeks off from work, which was such a blessing, and when he returned I didn't crash and burn like I was afraid of - she's been really great for me, blessed little girl. So things are progressing well for her and Travis, and mostly well for me, though I may be needing surgery down the road - I had a massive gallstone attack on Saturday. That was way worse than any labor pain, I thought I was dying and was begging for someone to either give me drugs or run me over in the parking lot. So the rumor is that I'll need to have my gallbladder removed, but I'm going to try to control that with diet for as long as I possibly can. (Travis is going to be annoyed when he gets home today and I haven't called the surgeon.)
But enough exposition - pictures!!
Here we are, our first family portrait, taken shortly after her arrival.
Can't resist this one - this is the first picture I took, with my phone, in the delivery room. Travis was completely in awe that he had a daughter - I was too exhausted to be emotional right away (that came later when I spoke to her for the first time.)
This was her first day home. Damn she's cute.
Travis blowing raspberries at the baby. Daddies are supposed to be the silly fun ones.
Naptime on the nursery floor. (The dogs and cats are doing really well with the new addition to the family. They're curious at best, but cautious. We're so grateful for their restraint.)
And that's our girl. :-)
