Lilah Faith is Here!!

I will most likely have to keep this fairly short, as we've been very busy as of late--for some odd reason!

Lilah made her appearance after an uneventful induction on June 15th. Of all the days to have another baby, I did NOT want Lilah and Aaron sharing a birthday, but when you're 9 days overdue, have been having stop and go labor for a week and are just READY to have your baby in your arms, that becomes a lot less important! I got to the hospital around 1pm. They started pitocin and I had my first contraction at 2:15pm. It went VERY quickly from there. It went from painful but bearable in one contraction. I was having a conversation about families with my mom and the nurse while Jeremy was grabbing a bite to eat and all of a sudden I had to get up and could NOT participate in anything anymore. I was leaning over the counter--the most comfortable position for me and breathing through the contractions. I tried to keep my focus, but I was having a TON of pressure with each contraction. I was feeling like I was headed toward transition because I was getting shaky and the pressure was getting out of control. I thought for SURE I must have progressed extremely fast, but when the nurse checked me, I was only at 5 cm. I just could not understand how I could possibly be at 5 when I was feeling so much pressure. I felt like I was ready to push at any time. I got so frustrated I decided to ask for an epidural. The anesthesiologist came and put it in. She did a fantastic job and had me lie down while she was doing it...MUCH more comfortable that way. The thing is, the epidural didn't seem to do much, if anything. The pressure continued to get worse in the next couple of minutes when all of a sudden I was like, "OH MY GOODNESS, I HAVE GOT TO PUSH!!!!!" There was no doctor there, they told me not to push...I had to breathe so hard to get through those contractions. The nurse checked me and kinda panicked and went to find a doctor. They got me set up quickly and they FINALLY told me I could push. I pushed for a VERY short time--maybe 5 minutes and out popped our precious baby girl! It was such an amazing experience, so intense and so joyful. She was born at 5:56pm--4 minutes from Aaron's ACTUAL birthday. We got our Irish Twins by 4 minutes! :)

We took guesses on her weight--we were all guessing in the 7lb range, but she looked awfully chunky to us...so we automatically thought she must be short then. When they weighed her, we were SHOCKED. 8lbs 7oz and 21.5 inches! What a big girl!
So far Lilah is pretty quiet. She sleeps a lot (like newborns should) and nurses well, although she doesn't stay awake all that long. She looks to me like she's going to have brown eyes, but we really haven't seen her eyes much yet.

I'll post more photos soon, but she needs to be fed.