welcome home!

We love being cozy at home & Bean really has enjoyed all of the lovely visitors... here are a few pics. We need more of me & Brian with her, but I've kind of been avoiding the camera :)

first couple of days

After 3 1/2 days in the hospital, Bean and I were discharged 2 days early because my doctor said I was doing extremely well and was healing up like I was built for having babies :) Our friends and family have made the first week a breeze, and so far little Eliette loves to sleep at night (only wakes up every 4-5 hours!), so we've been getting a decent amount of rest. Brian is the bestestest husband and daddy ever and has changed way more diapers than me already, and I have fallen even more madly in love with him after seeing how wonderful he is with our daughter. My mom has made sure we are all fed and rested all week long, and I feel like the luckiest daughter in the world. I hope I can be as great of a mother as she is.

we sprouted a gorgeous girl!

June 3rd 2008,
11:49 A.M.
7 pounds 12 1/2 ounces
20 3/4 inches

Our little Eliette Bean finally arrived after a pretty dramatic labor and delivery. She's absolutely beautiful and the whole family has instantly fallen in love with her (how could we not?!). I had an appointment with my OB Monday morning and we decided to schedule an induction for Wednesday the 4th. Welllll.... that night, around 9 o'clock, I started feeling contractions about 15 min apart, which quickly became stronger and longer. We headed to the hospital around 1:30 early Tuesday morning, and when I arrived I was already 4cm dilated! I progressed really fast, got an epidural when I got close to 6cm 90% effaced, and then dilated to 10cm by 6:00 A.M. They turned the epidural off at 6:30 (bad idea!) so I could push and ended up pushing until 11:00 A.M. Brian was my hero and held my head up during every contraction... my mom ended up coming in to help at around 8 which I didn't think I would need, but I was super grateful she was there. Little Bean ended up getting stuck with her face smushed up against my pelvic bone and completely tangled in the umbilical cord. After a LOT of hard work, pain, and 2 epidurals (that didn't work!!), we ended up getting an emergency C-section. I was surprisingly relieved to go into surgery because I knew that she wasn't going to come out the old fashioned way. My doctor confirmed she wasn't going to come out on her own after she saw how twisted she was in the surgery ("like a screw") and told me that there was proof that I was pushing the right way after seeing how low she was positioned (that made me feel better). When Brian and I heard the words "It's a Girl!!" we were ecstatic and that moment was SO worth the long wait of not knowing whether we were having a boy or a girl. The whole birthing experience was a lot of hard work, but amazing and SO SO worth it... she's beautiful and we're the happiest parents in the world.