435 Days

As I'm sure everybody knows by now, Lucy is finally here with us!

I woke up on Thanksgiving morning at around 5am with some painful contractions and labored for about 8.5 hours before Lucy was born at 1:27pm. She was born at home in our bed and I could not have asked for a better home birth experience. Jon was amazing the entire time. He was very calm and was really there for me when I needed him to be. Arianna handled the birth incredibly well too and was present the entire time. I was a little bit concerned that seeing me in such pain would scare her, but she handled it all very matter-of-factly and now she tells anyone who will listen that mommy said, "ow ow ow" and then Lucy came out! I can't believe how fortunate I am to have such a supportive family.

I actually wasn't entirely sure that I was in labor when I took this, but I decided that it might be best to take a belly picture just in case I didn't have a belly the following day. Good call, I guess!

Immediately after Lucy was born

When Lucy came out, she was very sleepy. She wasn't terribly interested in nursing and although she was awake, she wasn't crying and because of this she wasn't turning as pink as my midwife would have liked. This is NOT an emergency, but it can become a concern if it goes on for too long. They gave her a bit of oxygen and she pinked up, but as soon as they took it away she would turn a dusky color again. After about 45 minutes of this, my midwives had to make a decision: Keep us at home and hope that everything turned out to be fine or transfer us to a hospital as a precaution to make sure that we had access to a NICU if the need arose. They decided on the latter and so we were transferred to the hospital about an hour after Lucy was born. Although that was most definitely not in my birth plan, Jon and I are comfortable with the fact that we went. Lucy was observed in the NICU and they determined that she was fine. They kept us for 24 hours for observation, but she was able to room in with me. She would not have been able to do this if they weren't 100% certain that she was not in any danger. We were able to take her back home on the 26th.

At the hospital

Another Daddy's Girl in the making






About a day and a half old- 11/27/10






Sisters! She makes Arianna look so big......








My favorite picture of them so far




Mama and Lucy






My doula (who was on about four hours away when Lucy was born despite leaving GA at 6am to drive out to us) taking photos of Lucy