It's a GIRL!

Well, you predicted it.  (You, being 95% of the people who made a guess about this little one.)  It's a girl!

Audrey Laura Samad arrived at 5:18pm on Thursday, July 26.  She weighed in at 7lb 6oz and is 21 inches long.

She is doing really well.  She has been nursing and sleeping wonderfully and has been very happy so far.  If you want to hear about her delivery, read on.  If not, you can skip right on down to the pictures!

We decided to be induced yesterday and arrived at Christ Hospital at 9:00am.  We were lucky to get an optimistic and encouraging nurse named Lori.  She predicted that the baby would be here by dinner, maybe earlier. She was upbeat all day and helped us get ready to push early in the afternoon.  Everything went smoothly up to that point:  The pitocin kicked in immediately, the epidural came at just the perfect time, and I even let family come back to visit for a bit.  (That's saying something, folks!).

At around 1:30 I was 4cm dilated and opted to get my epidural.  Within 45 minutes I jumped to an 8.  Lori got excited and started prepping the room for 'go' time. By 3:00 it was time to push, and both Lori and Dr. Grim thought the baby would be out by 3:30 --maybe even 3:15.  Unfortunately, after one push Dr. Grim found that this little one was posterior. We tried and tried but we couldn't get the baby to move.  After 2 exhausting hours of pushing with little movement, Dr. Grim offered to pull the baby out with forceps.  I hesitated at first, but when he explained that I could still be pushing for 2 more hours with no progress we decided to go for it.  Extra help was called in and my epidural was increased before we started the process.  With a few more pushes and a few tugs with the forceps, Audrey made her arrival. I was so exhausted with those last few pushes and my extra dose of epidural didn't actually kick in until after she was out.  It didn't feel great.  But she's here now and I'm so thankful!

Final Belly Shot

Look at all of that dark hair!

Audrey has an abrasion on her face from the forceps.  It's pretty obvious in the picture above, but the pediatrician just left and seems to think it's healing well.  

She also isn't able to move her right arm to the full range expected.  The doctors want to keep an eye on it and feel as though it is something that will heal quickly on its own.  If they hadn't pointed it out I wouldn't have noticed that anythings wrong.  Actually, I still can't really tell.  Hopefully that's a good sign that nothing is too wrong!

Jack was AMAZING with Audrey when he came to visit.  Without prompting, he asked to sit on my lap, then signed 'please' and pointed to the baby.  We held her together while he gave her pats, kisses, pointed out all of her features, and just loved on her.  What a gift to me to have that worry wiped away.  Let's hope he still loves her so much when she comes home!

Yesterday Jack got to spend his whole day with Aunt Christy.  Now he's with Nana and tonight he'll be with my parents.  I'm sure he's been spoiled with all of the love and attention.  Thank you to all of you for taking just great care of him while we're up here!  

We look forward to introducing Audrey to all of you once we get home.  Thank you to everyone for your calls, texts, and emails.   I loved all of the encouragement throughout the day!.  Thank you for helping me and praying for us along the way.