More pics of Mary

Stacey and Mary are finally coming home this morning, after 3 days of recovery in the hospital. Stacey needed every day, she's been hurting, but she's now regaining some of her mobility and she's much happier.

I'm sitting in the hallway outside the room writing this post and filtering out some of the parade of people that want to go through the room every 30 minutes to wake her up. She's exhausted.

Here are two of my favorite pictures:




Evelyn and Grace have visited each day. They love their little sister. No, I didn't do their hair that cute, our friend Michelle did. If I take one step toward Grace with a hairbrush she starts to spasm and yells "Owie, owie!".



Grace really wanted to read Mary a book. She's been practicing on her dolls for months but now she gets to do the real thing.



Evelyn and Grace took turns kissing Mary back and forth for a few minutes. We were all laughing, it was so cute.





Here are my 4 princesses. (Stacey doesn't like being called my queen, all the queens in the Disney movies were evil.) I'm feeling thoroughly outnumbered these days. Whenever I'm getting more attention than I can handle I say "Do you know what we need around here?" And Evelyn finishes for me by saying "More little girls!"




Since she was born we've called Evelyn our "stinkerbug" because she's very stubborn. Grace has always been our "squishybug" because she has a higher body fat percentage than a baby seal pup (which has finally come in handy since it's getting cold at nights and I'm too cheap to run the heater). Mary is quickly earning the nickname "sleepybug" because she's way more sleepy than our first 2 girls. Our main problem is keeping her awake long enough to eat. Even after I change her diaper with my cold hands she only cries for 30 seconds, then she's asleep again.

Mary Darlene Dodds

Just a quick post, then when I'm not so tired I'll write a more thorough post. Mary Darlene Dodds was born at 8:40 AM today. She is 21 inches long and weighed 8 lbs 1 oz, but I think she's pooped away at least half a pound by now. (Update: I was trying to make a joke, but the pediatrician just told me that Mary really has lost 8 ounces, so I was right on! Apparently this is normal, but I don't remember this much poop from my first 2 girls. I probably blocked it from my memory.)

Stacey's labor was going along well but it slowed down so the doctor was going to break her water. When she went to do that she felt the umbilical cord between Mary's head and the birth canal, so she said she had to do a Cesarean section. It is extremely rare for the doctor to be able to notice the umbilical cord in the way, so we were very blessed. If the doctor hadn't noticed then we would have gone along with the delivery and pinched off the umbilical cord. Then the baby's heart rate would have dropped and they would have had to do an emergency C section, and we could have lost our precious little Mary.

Here are a few pictures. More later. In case you didn't know, you can click on these pictures to make them larger.