3/11/11 Baby Girl Has Arrived!

I hope everyone had a chance to pick a date in the baby birth date contest, because the pool is officially closed. In a shocking turn of events, Baby Girl decided to come even earlier than anyone guessed. I'll give you the detailed blow-by-blow later when I'm less sleep deprived, but the whole birth process was easy and painless and quick. It was the next best thing to actually having a stork bring a baby.

At approximately 4:45pm on Friday afternoon, my water broke. I was standing in the kitchen trying to decide what to make for dinner (lasagna or manicotti?) when all of a sudden my jeans were soaked. (They tell you in the birth classes that your water breaking is almost never a giant sudden gush like what you see in the movies. They are big fibbers. Mine was exactly like that. Big gush, wetness everywhere. And thanking my lucky stars that I had made it home from walmart just 20 minutes earlier because nothing says embarrassment like having to call for a cleanup on aisle 4). Anyway, I called Tony and suggested that he return to the homestead posthaste while I tossed a few last minute things into the hospital bag.

We checked into the hospital at 5:30pm, and they whisked me off to the ultrasound room to make sure Baby Girl was still determined to enter this world feet first. She was, so I was prepped for surgery. IV in the hand, spinal block (not that bad, btw), and endless blood pressure and temperature taking. Then at 7:30pm, they wheeled me into the OR for a little slice n dice and Baby Girl was officially born at 7:59pm. I was comfortably numb and hidden behind a curtain, but Mom and Tony watched the entire thing. (I must say that if you're going to have a baby, this is a good way to do it. I never had the first contraction, I was numb from the armpits down, the whole thing took less than 3 hours from the time I walked into the hospital, and Baby Girl managed to avoid that whole alien cone-head look from too long in the birth canal. I'm telling you, I've had dental cleanings that were more painful than this. It was all delivery, no labor, and a precious little girl as the result).

Baby Girl is 18" long and weighs 5lbs, 10 oz. She is tiny and adorable and perfect, and my heart completely melted and dripped onto the floor in a puddle from the moment I saw her.