Visitors & New Pictures

It's hard to believe Lily has been home for a week and a half already! She is growing and changing constantly, and Mark and I fall more in love with her every day.

My sister and niece were here visiting last weekend, and having a 2 year old, infant and a rambunctious dog in one house was a little crazy! We had fun though, and Kayla did really well with the baby. Honey (the dog) also has been great with both the baby and Kayla! She just wants to sniff and lick everyone ;)

My mom is here now and leaving Sunday, and then Mark's mom arrives on Tuesday for about a week. It's been a whirlwind, but the help has been great and it's really nice to watch everyone get to know Lily.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the last 10 days. Enjoy!

Congrats!

I just wanted to post a quick note to congratulate my cousins Maureen and Judson on the birth of their baby! Charlotte was born on Saturday morning and is a beautiful little girl. She and Lily are just 5 days apart :) We can't wait to meet our new cousin, and we are wishing them all the best!!

Lily videos for your viewing pleasure!

Lily is here!

As many of you already know, Lily joined us in the early hours of Monday morning! Here is the story of her arrival :)

I had an appointment scheduled with my doctor's office on Monday afternoon, and Mark and I had pretty much come to the conclusion that Lily was going to have to be convinced (via induction) that she wanted to join us on the outside. We went to bed around 10pm on Sunday night, and just as I started to drift off, I felt what I thought might be a contraction around 10:15. I had 2 more before 11 and decided to go downstairs to time them and see how things went. I fully expected to be in labor for a good 8-12 hours (average for a first time mom), and figured at least Mark could get some sleep for a while. Between 11pm and 12am, my contractions came much faster and much stronger than I would have anticipated and I was getting very uncomfortable. I decided to wake Mark up around midnight, so we threw the rest of my hospital bag together, grabbed the camera, got the dog settled in her crate and made the 5 minute trip over there.

We made it up to labor and delivery through a few more contractions, where the nurses checked me in and put me in a triage room. They paged my doctor who was at home (he was on-call and didn't have any other patients at the time). The nurse hooked me up to the monitors and checked me to see how far along I was. When I asked, she told me I had done most of the hard work at home and that I was 7-8cm. She actually lied to keep me calm! I had arrived at the hospital fully dilated at 10cm!!! (Before he knew this, Mark tried to go back down to the car to get the camera, and they wouldn't let him leave because they were afraid the baby would come while he was gone!) They moved me over to a labor room where they told me how far things had actually progressed and gave me the option to wait for my doctor or have a resident doc come up and deliver the baby. Thankfully he lives close to the hospital and arrived a few minutes later.

Then the scary part - I was too far along for an epidural!! The wouldn't have time to process the labs (a half hour) or for the medication to take effect before Lily made her entrance. They told me I would be doing this the old-fashioned, all natural way! I know lots of women have given birth naturally and there are many who would choose to have a drug-free labor, but I never thought I would be one of them!! After 3-4 contractions worth of pushing (less than 10 minutes), Lily arrived at 1:19am :) She was 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 19 inches long with a full head of blonde hair. Mark and I were totally shell-shocked since everything happened so fast. My entire labor from first contraction to birth was about 3 hours, and Lily was born less than half an hour after we arrived at the hospital. We called our parents to let them know that they were grandparents to a beautiful baby girl and settled into a room for the night, where we didn't sleep, but spent the night staring at Lily, wondering if that had all really just happened! The doctors and nurses were joking around with us that they're going to set up a mobile home in the parking lot for when I'm due with my next baby since second labors tend to be faster than the first ;)

We came home from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon and Mark and I are completely in love with our little girl. She is sleeping and eating well and is just a snuggly, sweet baby. We still can't believe she's really ours!

Thanks so much to all of you for your love and support. Lily is a lucky girl to have such wonderful friends and family in her life.

Just after being born, looking at Mommy

Getting cleaned up at the hospital

All scrunched up :)

Hanging out with Daddy

Due Date...

So today is my due date, and I think Lily is going to be officially late! We really appreciate all of the calls and e-mails we've gotten over the last few weeks checking in on us. It's nice to know that you're thinking about us and eager for Lily's arrival.

We have everything done around the house and are just playing the waiting game for now... I am actually feeling great, and thankfully, I'm fairly comfortable at the moment. We're hoping Lily will make her appearance soon, but if she doesn't come on her own over the weekend, we'll set an induction date for next week at my appointment on Monday. I have an e-mail list started to announce her arrival, but if you would like to be added to the list, just send me an e-mail and I'll make sure to include you.

Here I am at 40 weeks (today).

Congratulations to my friends Chris and Molly who welcomed their third baby, Andrew, last week. I'm sure Connor and Sara will be great siblings for their new little brother!