In the Life of the Schow Family: September 2010

"First Moments with Mommy"

So we went into the hospital this morning around 7:45 to be induced. Kristine could hardly sleep, she only got 2 1/2 hours... I however slept great! I have been trained to sleep through anything from Kristine's constant runs to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We will see how I deal with baby cries!! Anyway, so we check in and get the process going around 8:30. By about 10 to 10:30 Kristine was already on Pitocin, her water broke, and she had her Epidural. We felt great and excited. I LOVE EPIDURALS!!! Kristine says they are "painless" and she is extremely surprised how relaxing the whole labor process is, including contractions. I know...doesn't sound too typical for a woman in labor!

I can't believe how good Kristine looks during the "Transition Stage" of labor. She is totally making it look easy, I was way proud of her.

Our baby girl was born at 5:30 P.M. on Tuesday the 14th of September, 2010. She is adorable! I know that everybody says that their own baby is the cutest baby in the world, but she is truly adorable! She was 6 lbs 13 oz and 19 inches long. She looked like she had a big head to me, but ANY head would have looked big from my perspective! She is a good baby (well...she has been for the last 5 1/2 hours and we don't really have anything to compare her to). She cries for about 15 seconds every time she is moved around too much, but then she settles down pretty quick. She is extremely silent while she sleeps, which I guess is a good thing but it freaks me out! I like to hear her breathing and she is too quite most of the time for me. I am sure that is a feature I will love of hers in the coming weeks.

We are so excited to have our little girl. It was really nice to have her and to think about our 3 children, 2 of which are in heaven already. We couldn't help but think about our 2 boys being around us during the labor and while we were alone with our little girl! We are sure that the 3 of them have a great relationship and we feel blessed to be the parents of such beautiful children.

It was nice to have the family come in to see our little girl. After waiting hours in the waiting room, our family was able to come in and celebrate the birth of our healthy baby girl. Many others came throughout the night and it was so nice to have visitors to show her off to. We are excited to keep showing her off as she continues to meet the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and great-grand parents!

Sadly, we are not 100% positive of the name of our beautiful little girl just yet... I know...it is me that has commitment issues. Kristine is sure, she is just waiting for me to get on board completely with it. As of right now, our little girls name is Ainsley Lucile Schow. We both simply think that Ainsley is a beautiful name, and Lucile is the name of my wonderful grandmother. The more I see our little girl (not crying) the more I think the name fits and she is Ainsley!

(I would have had this blog post up earlier, but Ainsley decided to have a poopy diaper! Awesome, sticky, and disgusting all wrapped up in a tiny little package! So far I love being a Daddy)