Our first family picture

Gabriella Christine was born last Friday, February 25. She weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces. This is our first picture as a family. We had quite an adventure in getting to this point:

Thursday morning, Lissa (the Mama) didn't feel too well, and she mentioned this to her OB/Gyn at her doctor's appointment. After being unable to figure out what was wrong from her symptoms, she had a monitor placed on her belly that showed she was having contractions... which she couldn't feel yet. So we decided that since Thursday was supposed to be her due date, maybe we'd go ahead and induce on Friday morning.

Well, apparently our baby didn't like that idea, so she started making her presence known later that afternoon. By 11 that evening, the contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart. We'd been instructed that, when the contractions were that close, we should wait for 2 hours, then go to the hospital. Lissa has a pretty significant family history of quick deliveries, so we were a bit concerned about whether that would afford us the time to get there in time. Although our doctor insisted that quick deliveries were not genetic, she also assured us that even if this were to be a quick delivery, Mama would be hurting enough by the time the baby was coming that we'd have gone to the hospital already.

Lissa, as you may or may not know, is something of a tough cookie, so we thought we should just wait until either 2 hours had passed or there was enough pain to tell us to go. At 11:55 that evening, Lissa was thinking that it might be nice to have some pain medication, so maybe we should go to the hospital. Of course, we never got to discuss that, because 5 minutes later, she informed me that the baby was crowning.

So we hopped into the Baby-mobile and raced to the hospital, Lissa holding the baby in, and Mikey driving while coaching her to breathe and not push. We made it to the hospital, and were able to expedite our journey to the Labor and Delivery ward by informing them that the baby was indeed coming right then. After that, well, we got into the room, and Lissa delivered the baby (the old fashioned way, no anesthesia of any sort) at 12:42 AM. She weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces, and was 19 inches long. The OB/Gyn arrived half an hour later in complete shock at what had happened.

After all that, we now have a sweet little baby girl in our home... and you are lucky enough to read all about her!