SHE'S HERE!!!!

Sorry it has taken so long to update, but a lot has happened in the last few weeks. Lily decided to make her appearance 5 weeks early!! Needless to say we were quite unprepared. We had had a few episodes of false labor in the preceding week so when I began to feel contractions on Tuesday evening around 5 pm I didn't think much of it at first. Then I realized they were in a pretty consistent pattern, coming every 5 minutes. Then my water broke and I knew we were going to have a baby. When Josh got home from work around 7 we unloaded gifts from the back seat, as I had just had a baby shower at work that day, gathered our hospital bags, and grabbed the carseat still in the plastic wrap and tags attached. Neither of us had had dinner but I just knew that since my contractions were now 3 minutes apart and my water had broken that we were going to have a baby VERY soon so I opted not to get dinner on the way to the hospital. Once we arrived we discovered we were in for a very long journey. Although my water had broken I was not dilated and only about 10% effaced, out of a 100%. So we started Pitocin and took som extra measures to help my body get into labor. 36 hours later at 8am Thursday morning I opted to get the epidural. At this point I had had no sleep and been relegated to sugar free Jell-O, due to my diabetes. Combine that with intense pain, my finger being pricked every 2 hours, and knowing that I was only 4 cm dilated I knew I wanted some help. Once I got the epidural I was able to go to sleep and finally my body began to get into a good labor pattern. However we still had a long way to go. At 3:30 that afternoon I began pushing and pushed for about 45 minutes. Completely exhausted I took a nap for an hour and when I woke up I pushed for another 3 hours!!! Finally at 8:12pm on Thursday July 10 Lily Ruth Allen made her grand entrance into this world. She was 18 3/4 inches long, weighed 6 pounds 5 ounces, and had a head circumfrence of 13 inches. She is built just like her father being very long and thin, and many say she looks just like him too. What a surreal experience. She has brought nothing but an abundance of love into mine and Josh's world. The first week has been such a blur. Miracously Lily did not have to go to NICU and came home with us on Saturday. We then had to go 3 times that week to get her blood drawn and lay her in a Billirubin bed for her Jaundice. And we had to make sure she was eating as she had dropped down to 5 Pounds 6 ounces. However today we got a clean bill of health and she is doing wonderfully. Josh and I love her so much and could not ask for a better baby!