Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Grace Michelle Dodds

Grace Michelle Dodds was born at 9:57 AM central time today. She weighs 8 lbs 2 ounces and has brownish hair. Her hair is 1/2" long on top. We named her Grace because Stacey and I love the name, and because of the Grace of God. Her middle name Michelle is after her aunt Brionna Michelle.

Stacey has been having contractions for months. They have been worse for the last week. Tuesday night she was up a lot with contractions, and at 4 AM she started active labor. She was craving biscuits with tuna gravy so I made it. That was a mistake, since she threw it up later. We went to the hospital at 6 AM and Stacey was dilated to 7 cm. After 3 hours Stacey got an epidural, and she's very glad she did. Once she got it she took a 30 minute nap, and when she woke up the baby was ready to be born. Three pushes and she was done.

Stacey's friend Christy came to help with the labor and delivery. She also doubled as our photographer and got a lot more pictures than I could have. Thanks Christy!




Stacey taking a nap through transition. Her advice: "Get the epidural!"







One of the best parts of the epidural was that Stacey was able to enjoy the delivery. With Evelyn she was in so much pain she wasn't very happy with the stinkerbug, and it took a while to get attached. We loved Grace instantly.


Here's a video of Evelyn and Grace meeting for the first time.




Evelyn figuring out that a baby is a person. She's laying it on pretty thick in this video, probably because she heard me say that we're only keeping the cuter of the two kids. It's gonna be a tough decision.





This is one of my favorites because Evelyn is smiling at Grace, and Grace is making a face that I'll consider to be a smile back at Evelyn.