Grace Marie

Our baby girl has arrived!! And she decided to come on her own time schedule: 1 1/2 weeks early, arriving on the day we were supposed to close on our house! Oops! (more on that later).

She was born on Tuesday, August 26th at 5:52 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs 15 oz, 19 1/2 inches long and with a full head of hair!

Here was our first lesson that you can't count on plans much once you have kids. Things started happening Monday night about 9:00 as we were doing the last packing of boxes and I was getting ready to go to work for Tuesday (Dan planned it that way so there was no way I could try to do any of the moving). I was feeling achy in my low back- no big deal, right? Then I started to notice crampy-type feelings that were seeming to come and go.... sort of regularly. I was in such denial that there was any chance that this could be labor- we're supposed to make it into the new house first! Dan was encouraging me to call in to work. No, let me see what this really is. Well 7 minutes apart, hmmmm..... Ok, called work, called the midwife and the doula. I guess I'd better pack my bag for the hospital rather than for work. We left for the hospital when the contractions were 3.5-5 minutes apart. I was already halfway there when they checked me at the hospital at 2:40 a.m. Wow! Everything just went really fast. Dan was awesome in helping me through the contractions and our doula was great in helping both of us. The midwife checked me again about 4:45 after my water just broke and she announced that I was complete. I said, "Are you kidding me?!" She said, "I don't joke about that- you're ready to push!"

What an amazing experience to bring life into the world. I'll let you look at the pictures rather than you having to listen to me gush about the experience.

Meanwhile, Dan left in the middle of Tuesday after Grace was born to sign papers for the house and then coordinated the move to happen Wednesday instead of Tuesday. And just like he said he had envisioned, I left the apartment to have the baby and brought her home to a new house (just a couple of boxes needing to be unpacked.....) Thank goodness for family! Patti stayed with me in the hospital on Wednesday and Ron and my mom helped Dan coordinate the move (Yes, we had movers!) Piece by piece we are getting the house settled and learning how to be parents. It seems (so far) that we have a baby with a laid back personality- we are glad! She's had plenty of opportunities to learn how to cope with stress while along for the ride inside of me!

I'll keep you posted!