She's Here!

Yay Mira! Our sweet little bundle made her arrival on January 16, 2008 at 12:26 p.m. She was 7 pounds even, and 19.5 inches long. She is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I can't even believe she grew inside me for nine months and now I get to smooch all over her sweet face! It's amazing how you can suddenly fall in love with someone you just "met", knowing she is a part of you and half your DNA. Wow.

My husband calls me a stud. I did have a completely natural childbirth...no Tylenol...nothing. One of the nurses even said at the end, "you didn't even have a Tylenol". It was amazing...painful...but amazing. I started having contractions at around 4:00 a.m. on the 16th. I didn't pay a lot of attention because contractions had been a common occurrance. But about 40 minutes later I began to recognize the contractions were a little more intense than the ones I had had previously (for the previous two weeks). I started timing them and noticed they were getting closer together. Abe and I both got up around 5:45 and I started getting ready. Abe did some things around the house while I finished packing my bag. I was taking my time because I didn't want to be at the hospital for a long time before Mira was born and I wasn't overly uncomfortable. I was pretty sure I was in labor because the contractions were intense enough I couldn't do anything else while I was having one. At about 9:00 a.m. I told Abe to go ahead and go to Wal-Mart and grab us some breakfast and then we would head to the hospital. At that point my contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart. By the time he got back the contractions had gotten to 1-2 minutes apart. I thought I would be able to eat my breakfast really quick until I had a pretty intense contraction and told Abe we needed to leave RIGHT NOW. He responded quickly and packed up the car. We got checked into the hospital about 10:15, and little Mira was born a little over two hours later! Honestly, my labor went so quickly I didn't think much about getting an epidural. By the time the most intense contractions were coming it was time to push. But, seriously, I was not at all prepared for the pain involved with delivery! I honestly thought if I could get through the contractions the delivery would be cake. Oh no, people, no cake here. But by that point there's no need for an eipdural. There is some numbing medicine they can give locally and I um, probably not so nicely asked the doctor for some. She told me I could have some but she couldn't put a 15 inch needle down there with me moving around so much so said I needed to sit still. You know those women they show in movies giving birth and screaming and writhing around? That's real...that was me. It was one of those weird things where my body just went into panic mode and my brain had to catch up to calm my body down. The doctor never ended up giving me the medicine and I'm really grateful she didn't because once I was able to focus things went pretty quickly. Praise the Lord the doctor and nurses know what they're doing because they were able to tell me I needed to take a deep breath and where to focus on pushing. I'm not gonna' lie...it hurt. But at that point you do whatever they tell you to do because that baby needs to come out quickly! I only had to push for about 15-20 minutes before sweet little Mira was born! Afterwards I felt so amazing, mostly because I wasn't in pain anymore, I knew I had just accomplished something amazing, and my sweet daughter was finally here! I kept saying, "wow, I feel great!" It was really nice to not have taken any medication.

Mira has done so amazingly well and she is in perfect health. I praise God for giving us such a sweet healthy little girl (yes, Abe and I both looked pretty quickly after birth to make sure she was a girl!). God is so gracious with His gift. Oh, and my husband is amazing. He was the perfect supportive husband and was so calm and patient. He told me later he was about to cry seeing me in so much pain. What an amazing husband. And last night, he got up with Mira every time she was fussy and it wasn't time for her to eat yet. It was such a blessing to be able to rest knowing he was taking such good care of our daughter. I am beyond blessed with the Lord's goodness.

We should be heading home tomorrow, so we'll try to post some pictures then. We don't have a way right now to get the pictures from the camera to the computer. Just know she's a cutie!!