introducing Sara!

Here's our 'sweet pea', Sara, in her bassinet and enjoying some tummy time!

She was born at 7:55am on Sunday, April 8 at 8lbs 4oz., and 21.5 inches long. I went into labour on my own, and it was long - 20 hours of early labour, contractions 3-5 mins apart, then we finally were able to be admitted when I was 3cm dilated. Epidural was ready -- oh what a wonderful thing it is! I was fully dilated in a matter of hours and I thought it would be a piece of cake from there... but, I wasn't able to push effectively with the epidural and they had to turn it off. Even though it was supposed to last partially for another 2 hours, it was 3 1/2 hours of pushing followed by a vaccuum delivery at the end (with no epidural left.) It was so worth it in the end, and suddenly she came out crying and I of course starting bawling. What a moment!! But anyone who says you forget the pain is someone who had the epidural the whole time or is lying!!

She is doing really well, had her first trip to the doctor for a checkup yesterday. Unfortunately we also had our first trip to the ER this week... she is totally fine, but she had brought up some blood. FULL panic ensued on my part... as it turns out, I've been having trouble getting the hang of breastfeeding (which is very emotionally distressing and much more intense than I expected) and she had ingested some blood from me. I've since learned this is quite common and one of my friends had the exact same thing happen. We had a lactation consultant come over the next day and we are making progress.

We are both very tired of course, and I've been really emotional and weepy this week, but she is just so amazing. I am so in love with her -- I can't even describe how it feels. But, daddy has her right now and I think she's hungry, so gotta go!