Our newest Princess

We had a delightful surprise just before the year's end--our baby girl was born.

Here's the story that I still find a bit stunning:

Tuesday, December 30th, I went to the hospital for my normal Tuesday morning Non-Stress Test for gestational diabetes. Baby is normally pretty wiggly and therefore difficult to keep the fetal heart monitor on. This day was no exception. Finally the baby cooperated and we were able to get great readings on baby's heartbeat. Meanwhile, my blood pressure was NOT cooperating. My regular OB just happened to be working the floor and came in to talk to me.

Dr. says: I think it would be best to take the baby early given your critical blood pressure readings

I respond: Oh, so how early are we talking?

****keep in mind we were scheduled for a repeat c-section on January 14th****

Dr. says: This afternoon.

In a haze of disbelief, I told the doctor that that was a little inconvenient for me, while appreciating my honesty, he didn't care.

So I called Daddy who go the girls around and called a friend from church who, bless her heart, did NOT respond to Daddy the way I did to the doctor and was able to take the girls until Auntie came up from NC.

While Daddy was doing all this, I called said Auntie and asked her to come up right away. Poor gal had just left our house on Sunday! Thankfully, she too had a response quite the opposite of mine and five hours later was happy to be holding her newest niece.

Between Daddy and I, we were able to call the grandparents and give them a heads up. While waiting for Daddy to arrive at the hospital (since they wouldn't let me leave at all), I was getting settled into a room, labs drawn, IV started, fetal monitor and blood pressure cuff back on. Since I had had breakfast, we couldn't do the surgery until at least six hours after I had eaten.

2:06 pm we went back to the OR.

2:47 pm our newest princess was released from the womb. She was 37 weeks and 3 days at the time of her birth and still had quite a bit of amniotic fluid in her lungs, but was trying very hard to say hello to her new world.

Our little princess weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long at birth.

Welcome to the family, princess!!