She's here....

Gracie is here! She arrived February 15, 2010 at 8:35am; weighing 6lbs and was 18 1/4inches long. I was 36 weeks 6 days - yes once again early but not as early as I was with Marley and thank goodness Gracie didn't have to go to Children's Hospital.

Here is the story!

I had been having contractions all weekend that were about 4-6 minutes apart but never got any closer and my back pain was pretty constant. Sunday night I went to bed not thinking a thing. Needless to say at 2:34am (that is actually the time that Marley was born) my water broke and the fun began!

Rob called and woke up mom and dad up so they could come to the house to watch Marley until Aunt Kriston got there so they could come to the hospital to be with us.(Yes we already had this planned as you can tell) I got in the shower, put my make up on, did my hair and then Rob made us wait in the car until mom and dad got to the house - he was afraid that Gracie would come faster than Marley did which wouldn't have been good!

When we got to the hospital it was about 3:30am. I was admitted and at this point was dilated 3cm and was 80% effaced. Once I was dilated around 5cm I got my epidural (which I didn't have a chance to get with Marley). It was perfect. I could not feel from my boobs to the top of my legs but I could feel everything else and I stopped feeling my contractions almost immediately it seemed.

Since Kriston's sister Whitney is a labor and deliver nurse and just had a baby of her own she told Kriston about "laboring down" which allows the baby to come "naturally/on its own" instead of pushing for so long. Well thanks to Whitney giving us that wonderful information I was able to "labor down" and at 8:15am I started pushing. I pushed 5 or 6 times and Gracie made her grand appearance at 8:35am. She was absolutely perfect and so tiny!

I can honestly say that giving birth to Gracie was amazingly easy and I know I am truly blessed to be able to say that. It was definitely bitter sweet especially since we are not sure that we will have anymore. Rob thinks that living with 3 females is all he can handle...but only time will tell! No matter what we have the perfect life and couldn't ask for anything more!

We truly could not have done any of this without our family. Aunt Kriston, Uncle Jason and Elli allowed Marley to spend the night with them as well as Mom and Dad. It was so nice not to have to worry about if Marley was being taken care of etc. Thank all of ya'll so much! We love all of ya'll more than you will ever know.