Hazel

Be warned - the rest of this post contains birth details...

We feel so blessed to have Hazel here healthy and safe! So far she has been super easy going. Nothing seems to phase her...we'll see how long that lasts, but we are grateful for it! We went into the hospital on Friday morning (the 8th) at about 7:00 am. After doing the paper work and getting all ready the nurse came to tell us that the "epidural guy" would be in surgery until about 9. So we got my IV in and started getting fluids into my system and waited. After getting my epidural a little too late with Gracie (as in I was totally numb 15 minutes AFTER she was born) I was more than happy to wait to get things going until I was comfortably numb. Everyone has their own opinions about epidurals, but mine is that they rock. I have no problem coughing up the money to pay that bill! :)

At 9:20 I got my epidural and they had given me pitocin a little before that the nurse, Aaron and I each guessed when we thought the baby would be born (I was about a 6-7). Aaron said 9:45, I said 10:00 and the nurse said 10:15. You gotta give our nurse some credit for guessing it right on the nose! Hazel seemed to come so fast and then she was so quiet it was a little scary. I think the nurses were a little nervous, but even though she wasn't crying all of her Apgar scores were healthy. She may just be kind of quiet - I guess we'll see!

Thanks to my parents our stay in the hospital kind of felt like a 2 day date! Since both days it was snowing non-stop we didn't feel restless about being stuck inside. We made it home on Sunday morning and things have been going pretty well since. I'm so grateful for a supportive husband! I definitely would not be having my 4th child if I had to buck up and get right back into the swing of things. He has softened the blow and I'm starting to feel like it would be okay for things to get back to normal.

It feels like such a miracle to have made it through another pregnancy (I swear this one lasted longer than 40 weeks) and finally have our sweet little girl here healthy and strong. The kids were talking about how it was Hazel's "birth" day and Parker said "our gift to Hazel is that she gets to come to a big family that loves her." I think that may be the best "birth" day gift ever!