Holly is Here!

Holly Colleen Sheaffer is here! She was born Monday, October 13th, at 8:15 AM. She weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs and 1 oz. I thought she would be much bigger considering all the cookies I have been eating, but 7 lbs is good for me! She was 19 1/2 inches long.

Her debut was quite a surprise. I felt really good on Sunday and figured I was in for another 2 weeks of pregnancy. It was a beautiful fall day on Sunday, so Scott and I took Owen for a nice long walk and played in the park for a while. I still felt fine after the long walk. I went to bed around 10:00 with no thoughts of having a baby any time soon. At 11:00 I woke up for a bathroom break, and when I sat up I felt a gush of water and thought I had peed my pants! So I thought I had better get to the bathroom soon. By the time I go to the bathroom I was pretty soaking wet. I thought, "Hmmmm...my water must have broken" but it wasn't a huge gush of water like you always think of when your water breaks. So I got myself cleaned up to see if I was still leaking water, but there was nothing else. I wasn't having contractions, so then I thought maybe I just can't hold my bladder anymore...how embarrassing! I went back to bed.

About 2 hours later I woke up with the start of contractions, so I knew it was happening. I didn't want to go to the hospital too soon though. When I had Owen I went to the hospital and I was only 1 centimeter dilated, so they made me walk around for hours, which was pure torture! I didn't want to go through that again. So I decided to ride out the contractions until it got closer to morning. Then I could call my mother-in-law at a decent time to come and watch Owen. I tried to stay in bed, but that was very uncomfortable. So I decided to try a hot shower, they say that's a good thing while you are in labor....and it is! I stayed in the shower for about 45 minutes just letting the hot water fun on my back. I finally got back in bed around 4:00 and I rode out the contractions there for another hour. At 5:00 I knew my mother-in-law would be awake, so I called the doctor. He told me to come on in to the hospital. We called my mother-in-law, she came right over and we headed off for the hospital!

Let me say, if you are ever in labor don't call my husband to drive you to the hospital! He is not a graceful driver. And the roads around here have horrible bumps that you don't notice until you are in labor and in complete and utter agony! We got to the hospital around 6:15...they made me sign papers and answer all sorts of silly questions...they shouldn't do that to pregnant ladies! There is plenty of time for question and answer time after the baby is born. I got sent in to see how far along I was, and my doctor was already there...surprise surprise! He checked me out and I was 6 centimeters dilated...Woo Hoo! No walking around for me this time. He sent me up to my room to get my epidural and said I would have the baby within the next few hours. I didn't believe him, with Owen it took 2 hours just to push him out! By 7:40 I finally had my epidural in, it seemed to take forever to get in this time. The doctor said he was going to break my water, but there was no need since I guess my water had actually broke the night before. At that point I just had to wait to be fully dilated. The doctor came back in at 8:10 and I started the fun process of pushing. I pushed through 2 contractions and there she was! It was so quick compaired to Owen...I could hardly believe it! I think I'll try and have quick deliveries for the rest of my babies too!

Holly has been such a wonderful baby so far too. She took right to nursing, so she always has a full belly when she wants one and sleeps the rest of the time. Owen doesn't quite know what to make of her yet. He hasn't gone near her, he seems a little leery of her. He will point to her and say, "Baby Holly" though. So I don't have a picture of the two of them together yet, but I will get one once he gets a little more comfortable with her. I don't want to push it. Here are some pictures of her that we did get though...

This is Holly's 1st picture, taken about 5 minutes after she was born. I think she looks a lot like me when I was a baby.

Here is Holly and her proud daddy!

This is Holly right after her 1st bath. It's so interesting to see the nurses giving the baby a bath...they just toss them around like a football, scrubbing them all over the place...I guess they are use to it though.

Here's Holly all snuggled up after eating this morning. She looks so dark...but so did Owen when he was that age...she will grow out of it.

Here's Holly at home! She's probably wishing she was still at the hospital where the nurses know how to swaddle her properly, but she's still sleeping away just like that...so I guess we didn't do too bad!

So there you have it...the story of Holly's birth. Hopefully we'll get lots more pictures in the next few days and weeks so you can see her as she grows!