Meirah Nicole, born May 12 09, 8lbs, 20 inches

Here is our princess just a few days after her much awaited debut.

We can't tell you all how happy we are. Big sister Ivria is adjusting well so far, I figure there won't be any real difficulty until Jim has gone back to work and there will no longer be a parent fully at her disposal :-) Until then we are enjoying the time as a happy family. This morning we let Ivi come down the hall to see her sister on the bed, and she laid down next to her and gave her a gentle hug. Sigh, happy times.

Anyway, on to the birth story!

Everything finally got rolling around here on Monday night. After much false labor, I was sitting here at the computer when my water broke. I was totally surprised as I had not experienced this with Ivria, so I ran off to the bathroom, and sure enough! We were gonna have a baby soon! So I called Jim at work and told him that he probably had a few hours before he really needed to be home, but the gals at work sent him home. We got everything packed and had Lola come pick Ivria up for us, and settled in for the start of Labor. I started having some mild contractions, and at 10:30pm we headed to the birth center. I really thought things were going to move quickly, but baby had other plans I guess.

I was dilated to 3cm when we got there, but my contractions died off and by about 2am we were taking a nap on the bed. By 6am we had only dilated another half cm, and were sent off by the midwife to have some breakfast.

So here we are, at 6:30 in the morning after being up all night, at Denny's. You can see how thrilled I am to be there, instead of delivering a baby already!!!!

The whole point of getting out a bit was to distract me from worrying about the labor, and it worked. By the time we got back to the birth center, the contractions had picked back up and I was dilated to 4 cm finally. Between 8:30 and 11:30 things finally picked up momentum.

At 11:30 we were dilated to 6 cm (FINALLY!) and I was begging for the birth tub.

Sparing you all the gory details, Meirah arrived happy and healthy at 2:23 in the afternoon.

Here is a very happy daddy!

And here is our good friend Melissa, who came along for support. She assisted our midwife Joan in catching Meirah. Joan was the one who delivered our first baby, in the same room in fact!

And here is a very tired and swollen, unglamorous mommy, who couldn't be more content with the experience. It was frustratingly slow in the beginning, but once she arrived, all of that went away. I feel great at this point, in fact we were home in time to catch american Idol that night.

Thank you to all our friends sending their prayers and good wishes. Lots more updates to follow! Jim is off work for 2 weeks, so we will all be chillin at home enjoying our new status as a family of 4.