She's Here!

I know, I'm a few days late, but we've been a little busy!

Elsie Wynne Casanova was born on Tuesday, December 30th at 5:50 pm. She is 20 inches long and was 7.5 pounds. She has a full head of blondish hair and blue/gray eyes.

I went in the night before to receive medication to be induced and the induction started the morning of the 30th. I woke up at 5:30 am showered and started Pitocin to encourage dilation. Every half hour the nurse would come in, check my pain level and up my Pitocin amount. My OB came in about 8:00 and broke my water to encourage things along. At about 10:00 contractions became pretty intense but I wanted to hold out on the epidural since it can slow down labor. About noon, I was contracting every 2 minutes and decided it was time for some relief. They gave me the epidural and within half an hour or so I was pain free. The epidural involves sticking a large needle directly into the spine to insert a cathetar that provides the medication directly to the spinal column. Before I received it, the day nurse, Dawnelle, asked me if Ryan had had a good breakfast because apparently they have lost several husbands that way! Ryan hadn't eaten yet, but he listened to the wise advice and ordered some bacon, sausage, and a biscuit. Much better than the ice chips I had... Although I got the Jimmy Johns sandwich that I had waited 9 months for shortly after delivery thanks to Alan and Emily. (I used it as a motivational tool during pushing, very effective!)

Back to the baby story... After I got the epidural, I was about 4 cm and comfortable. An hour later I was 5-6 cm, an hour later 7 cm, and about 5:00 they checked and I was fully dilated and ready to push! Oh and did I mention that I pretty much just slept all afernoon? Yes, the drugs seemed to be working!

We did some practice pushes to see if we could get her into the right position while we waited for the OB to arrive. She got there about 5:20 and after about 30 minutes of pushing she was out. I think I did about 8-10 sets of pushes total. It was amazing, I tear up just thinking about it.

I am recovering well. The first couple of days were pretty rough but things are getting better every day.

We came home New Years Day about 2:00. The first night at home was a little rough, hard to get settled in. Elsie also has night and day a little confused so that's making it a little more difficult on mom and dad.

As for Ryan, he's been perfect, I couldn't imagine having to go through all of this without him. Its' easy to see that he's going to be a fantastic daddy!

Here are some pictures from the hospital, both after birth and when we were getting ready to head home. I'll post more pictures in the next couple of days... Lots of 'firsts' for Ryan and I that we're documenting!

To go from no light to the brightest light ever, I'd make the same face...

Lookin' all relaxed and stuff...

Proud mommy

Proud daddy


Elsie's going home outfit

We're home!

Thanks for looking, much love to everyone.

- Sarah and the rest of the Casanova family