Welcome to the world Hadley Rose!

Welcome to the world Hadley Rose! Thursday morning at 2:00 am I was feeling some pressure and discomfort and read my book to try to fall back asleep. At 3:30 I got up to go to the bathroom and as I stood up my water broke. I quickly woke up Mike and as I called the hospital and we packed our bags I started to have strong contractions. We arrived at the hospital at 4:30 am and were taken into a triage room where they wanted to verify whether or not my water really had broken. At that point I was dilated to 5 cm and confirmed with the nurse that I wanted an epidural. She left to take the test to the lab and my pain quickly increased. I told the nurse that I was feeling a lot of pressure and she checked me again and I was dilated to a 10. We quickly moved to a birthing room at 5 am and I optimistically asked if I could still have an epidural. Of course at this point it was way too late and the nurses were scrambling to get everything ready for delivery. The on call OB arrived at about 5:10 am and at 5:27 am our sweet baby was born and I had a completely natural delivery.

Her stats:

• Weight: 9 lb. 6 ounces
• Height: 19 1/4 inches
• Head: 14 inches
• Chest: 14.5 inches
• Apgar scores: 8 & 9

She's a very healthy girl! So far Hadley is a sweet and laid back baby - hardly ever crying except when hungry and boy does she have an appetite! Nursing is going well so far. When she is awake - which is mostly at night - she listens and is so attentive to me - her big eyes look into mine and my heart swells. One of the moments we love the most with our newborn is when she snuggles to us - her little bundled body molding to ours.

We had another positive hospital stay with many loving family visitors. Unfortunately, on Thursday Miles came down with a fever. Today his fever finally broke but it's been difficult and stressful trying to keep him away from the baby when we want him to enjoy and celebrate the arrival of his sister as much as we are. We believe he is on the mend and have vigilantly been trying to protect Hadley from exposure to his illness. This of course is probably easier said then done. Yesterday morning as Miles was crying and Hadley was crying my confidence as a new mom of two was definitely wavering. With all of this though I couldn't be more proud or happy to be a mom of two!

We want to say a special thank you to my parents for taking care of Miles while we were in the hospital. Taking care of a toddler is never easy - much less a sick one. They took wonderful care of him and we're greatly appreciative for all of their support and help.

Meet our new little one!