She's here!!!

Little Leah Grace is here!!! She was born on Monday, April 7th, at 2:17pm. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces (yay for being under 9 pounds!), and measured 19 inches long. She is perfect in every way, and has stolen our hearts.

I kind of feel guilty in saying this, but the labor and delivery were pretty easy this go around...all praise to God! I went in on Sunday night to get "prepped" for induction. Basically, this means my body was not quite ready to go into labor with the help of Pitocin, so I needed an extra little something to get going. When we first arrived, we found out Leah was already playing tricks, and instead of being head down, she was sideways. We couldn't do anything until she was head down, so I was put into a very uncomfortable position with this huge peanut exercise ball,

 in an effort to have gravity move her head down. Thankfully, it worked, and I didn't have to try another position change! After she moved to a head down position, I was given a drug called Misoprostol, which would start uterine contractions and prep me for receiving Pitocin. It's safe to say my body responded well to the drug because it jump-started labor to the point where I didn't even need the Pitocin. Within four hours of receiving the medicine, the contractions were 2-4 minutes apart, and I was ready for the epidural. The anesthesiologist squeezed me in right before a surgery, and the rest of the labor and delivery was sweet serenity! I labored for another seven hours, pushed for maybe 15 minutes, and out came Leah surfing through all of that extra amniotic fluid I had. And there she was, beautiful and perfect!