She's here!!

Ryan and I are very excited to announce the arrival of the newest member of our family...Abigail Elizabeth!

So here's the long story....

On Friday morning at about 1am I woke up with contractions. I didn't think much of it, because I have been having a lot of "false" labor during the last couple weeks & it has been keeping me up for hours on end for the past couple weeks. By 3:30am I realized that it wasn't going away & was actually getting stronger. So I woke Ryan up & we began to get ready to at least head down the hill & get things checked out. Of course, we really weren't ready to go because she wasn't due until November 10th, which is 2 1/2 weeks away! So by 7am we had dropped Micah off at the Pastor's house & we headed down the hill to the hospital (which is an hour & a half away). Of course, through the drive & our initial arrival at the hospital I noticed that my contractions were disappearing & it looked like it really was false labor, but we had driven that far so we figured we'd better check it out. After about 2 hrs of monitors with only about 3-4 contractions/hr Ryan & I were convinced that we were going to be sent home. To our surprise the nurse came in to check me after two hours & said that I had progressed from 4cm to 6cm!! What!! How could that be the case? The next thing I know the Dr. on call is walking in the room offering to break my water...I wasn't too sure if I was ready for all...I still have another 2 1/2 weeks!!! But being that this was a small hospital and there was only one OB on call for the entire maternity ward, and it was a busy day (they delivered 8 babies that day!) I knew I was going to get to wait. So about 4 hrs later (3pm) the Dr. decided to break my water & things took a dramatic turn. I began to have INTENSE contractions (much more than I ever had with Micah) and they quickly progressed to 1-2 minutes apart. After quickly getting my Epidural (man, I LOVE those things!!!) we were off to the races!!! I began pushing at 5:10pm & we had our little girl in our hands by 5:36pm. This was a VERY different labor than Micah's. With Micah I never had very strong or intense contractions before my Epidural & I pushed for over 2 1/2 hours. I expected to endure the same this time around, but it was quite different.

Abby is a beautiful baby girl, with deep blue eyes & a little bit of brown hair on top. We aren't too sure what color her hair will eventually be because she has VERY light eyebrows & eyelashes...maybe a redhead?!! We stayed in the hospital for only 24 hrs & everything checked out fine, so I was eager to return home & introduce Micah to his new baby sister. Micah is actually doing really well with her & we continue to remind him to be gentle with her. She is a VERY quite baby & sleeps a lot & has to be reminded to eat...but I'm ok with that.

I am blessed to have my parents here & hope to send Micah home with them for a week before we take our "big" trip up to Portland to show Abby off. I hope all of you get a chance to meet her soon also!!!