Her Birth Day

I know it’s a little out of order, but I wanted to share a few photos from Wednesday and tell you how it all went. Unfortunately, 3:30 a.m. came a little too soon and we were busying ourselves getting ready for the big adventure. Does it surprise anyone that I made the beds, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher and took out the trash on our way out the door? I hated for our housesitter to be miserable!

Our first opportunity to snuggle, post-recovery. We were reporting to labor and delivery at 5 o’clock that morning and were greeted by a fabulous nurse, Jonlyn, who took excellent care of us while we were there. We watched the baby on the monitor for the next few hours while I answered a thousand questions, wrote a big fat check and got my epidural. I was really nervous about the anesthesia since the last time I had one of those I was writhing in pain and too upset to care! I got lucky with the head of anesthesia and he had me all set in no time. I was a little upset once I realized I couldn’t feel her moving any more, but I knew we were one step closer to feeling her move in my arms.

Sophie & Ella meet for the first time; in tow are Bunny and Gigi the Giraffe {ella’s gift for Sophie}. I was taken to the operating room at 7:00 with an anticipated start time of 7:15. My doctor was wonderful and SD came into the room shortly after we got started. Only nine minutes into my surgery, sweet Sophie Kae Fields was born. She was wedged in my belly at an angle with her head under my right hip bone, so it was a little difficult getting her out. The doctor even stood on a step stool to get more leverage as she pushed her out. Sophie was purple and a little stunned because of her traumatic entry, but was yelling at us all in no time. I got to watch on a large flat-screen monitor as the nurses cleaned her off and weighed her. Her daddy took great care of her, took lots of pictures and escorted her to her first big appearance. From what I hear, the paparazzi were out in full-force!

Sophie, meet Bunny; Bunny, meet Sophie {you can see in this picture Ella’s necklace, her gift from Sophie}Since Sophie was perfectly healthy, we were quickly reunited in the recovery room where she got a bath and some snuggle time with mom and dad. She proved to be a natural at nursing and shocked everyone around when she ate for 45 minutes the first time. We spent the day snuggling her and introducing her to all of our favorite people. It was so much fun watching everyone meet her and reading the hundreds of emails, text messages and blog comments we got throughout the day. Possibly my favorite line of the day came from big sister, Ella. Each time a new person would hold Sophie, Ella would declare it “her turn” and remind whomever had her at the time that “she never saw her before!” It was so sweet and worked like a charm.