Introducing Liesel Grace!

I feel the need to begin by giving props to all the amazing mommy bloggers I subscribe to who are capable of finding time to blog regularly -- seriously, you are wonder women!

That being said, the wait is finally over! I had convinced myself that this girl was going to be a toddler before making her debut, but at 7:26pm on March 3 (at 39 weeks, 6 days), Liesel Grace entered the world in all her squirmy glory!

Our little beauty was 6lb, 12oz and 19in long at birth...and I did it naturally (well, epidural aside...)! Honestly, I had fully expected the whole time that I would need a c-section. Not for any particular reason, really; I just happen to be surrounded by people who have had very complicated deliveries, not to mention the...ahem..."fun" time I had throughout this pregnancy. The one thing I hadn't prepared myself for was a picture perfect labor! I won't share the entire story here because, frankly, you would be reading for 6 hours and I would have been typing for 12, but how about a quick synopsis?

After having fairly-mild-but-getting-stronger contractions all throughout the night, at around 9am the hubs and I made the journey (ok, we live 5 minutes away, but it's my blog, and if I say it's a journey, it's a journey!) to the hospital. After getting to walk the halls for an hour, it was determined that I was in active labor, and I was admitted. Yadda yadda contractions, yadda yadda blessed heavenly jacuzzi, yadda yadda epidural. So we're at about....1-ish o'clock now? Hey, I'm in labor, I don't know what time it really was, we'll call it 1:00. For the next few hours we danced the Pitocin Jig until my contractions were coming nice and close/regular again. Fast forward another couple of hours of twiddling my thumbs waiting to dilate fully and OH! -- for that stupid water to break! If you've read my first post, you know that I had been on bedrest for four months because (among other things) my amniotic sac had been weakened by my dilating prematurely and could rupture at any time. Well, in reality, this thing was apparently made of thick, high-quality leather, and could have probably carried the weight of a lonesome hobo looking for a warm place to sleep (wow...that is really bad imagery...I'm so sorry...). Anyway, that thing stayed sealed up nice and tight until the doctor came in and broke it. Within, say, 10 minutes, it was time to push.

It took about 10 minutes of pushing, and this little person popped out! Well, I say "popped;" in reality, they helped her out with the forceps a bit at the end there. The moments of and immediately following her birth contain some specific thoughts I will always remember vividly:

1) The absolute WEIRDEST feeling I have ever experienced thus far in my life is the moment when Liesel was (again, pardon the imagery) "out" from the waist up, and "in" from the waist down, and every one of her 6,300 limbs were flailing around. It is like birthing a squid. After sharing this thought with a couple of close mommy-friends, it may be that I am alone in this experience...
2) As I said, this girl was only 6lb, 12oz, but upon laying eyes on her for the first time, my first thought was, "HOLY MOLY, that is a HUGE baby!!!" I was fairly certain the scale would prove her to be a Thanksgiving turkey.
3) Of course I wanted her, but it was somewhat pointless for them to give her to me right away, as the second my giant squid-baby was out I burst into tears & became unable to see her.

So that's the abbreviated version of my labor and Liesel's birth. She will be 3 weeks old tomorrow, and things have started settling down a little bit. I will say that in those first few days I think I cried at least as much as her (breastfeeding issues+no sleep=hysteria); everyone says nothing can prepare you for having a child...they weren't kidding! In just this short time it is the most difficult, frustrating, frightening, tiring, wonderful, exciting, biggest blessing of my life.

Also...my husband. I could not have made it through these first few weeks without him. He has already saved my sanity too many times to count, and getting to watch him transform from a man into a father has touched my heart almost as much as the experience of having a child itself. The day after we came home from the hospital, he got "new daddy brain" and forgot to wash his hair when in the shower (...maybe you just had to be there...). The first Sunday we brought Liesel to church, every time I turned around my baby was missing -- Daddy had her in his arms and was proudly showing her off to everyone and everything that stayed still long enough. They're funny anecdotes, and I've had a good time laughing at him, but I'm also storing these things up in my heart so I can share them with our daughter someday. This kid is so lucky...