Yes, while I haven’t posted in nearly two months, we did welcome our beautiful baby girl into our little familiy.  (Perhaps this is WHY I haven’t posted in nearly two months…)  I have heard it said that the moment you hold your little baby in your arms you forget all the pain of labor.  This is a LIE.  In fact, you’re still hurting.  But our darling little Ella is so worth every bit of it.  I was in labor for almost 24 hours but not actively pushing until the last 2 and a half hours (that was a long 2 1/2 hours!).  I got an epidural halfway through.  They gave me some medication to relax me so I wouldn’t have a panic attack and Matt had to hold me up so that they could get it in.  Maybe Matt will write about the experience.  After that it was kind of interesting to watch the monitor they had me hooked up to so that I could see the contractions that I couldn’t really feel.  (I felt ‘em at the end though–I don’t think any amount of pain meds could actually keep you from feeling those final contractions!)  At this point, I had a fever and Ella’s heartrate had been over 200 bpm for half an hour.  When Ella emerged at 11:20 pm, they put a towel on my chest and laid her there.  I am ashamed to say that my first reaction was a mumbled, “Take her off–clean her up first.”  After that it seemed like forever while they took her vitals and wiped her down before they let me hold her again.  Aparently, she wasn’t breathing great and doing the gasping and crying that she needed to but she got things taken care of without any serious interventions.  She had to go to the nursery to get some tests done because of my fever (she STILL has bruises on the backs  of her hands due to the IV!) and when she came back, we had visitors (Grandma Rosemary, Grandma Kathleen, Grandpa James, and Auntie Angel) for a little while.  Around 4 in the morning, Matt, Ella, and I all got to sleep.

More updates to follow…