Adventures In Woods

Well here goes entry #2.  I went to bed around 2:30 AM early Sunday morning after writing the first entry.  Less than 6 hours later, we had a baby girl :)  Wow!  Jess’ water broke around 3:10, and she decided to let me sleep knowing I hadn’t slept much and that I would need my strength to help her a few hours later in the day - bless her!  Her first strong contraction was at 4:15, and she called my dad a few minutes later asking them to come over to our house so they could be there for our boys when they woke up.  She woke up her mom up at 4:50.  Remember, she had just arrived at 1 PM on Saturday afternoon.  She woke me up at 5:20, and I guess I asked her, “Did you eat breakfast with your mom?” since I had heard them talking.  Her reply went something like this, “No. Your parents are here. My water broke, and I’m in labor.”  Hello!  That’s an interesting way to wake up after less than 3 hours of sleep.  I laid there for about 5 minutes since it took a little while for the reality of the situation to sink in.  When I was coherant enough to realize there was no stopping this train, I got up and started gather a few things to take.  Jess had already packed the “hospital bag” over a week earlier, so it didn’t take much.  We asked my parents to feed the cats and left around 6:20.  As we pulled onto Paseo Del Norte, we both remembered an early morning very much like that one but five years earlier.  Kyle had driven us to the hospital on that full moon night in the same white Corolla that Bernice was now driving us in.  Jonathan had been born 15 minutes after we arrived on that morning of October 10, 2003, but Sarah gave us an hour and a half in Labor & Delivery before arriving at 8:10 AM on Sunday, September 21, 2008.  She weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces, and was 20 inches long.  It was an amazing blessing, and both Jess and I cried when we heard Sarah cry for the first time.  Delivering a baby is never easy, but the birth of our daughter was as good as it gets.  We had been praying for a short labor, and she came in just under 4 hours.  Praise God!

Speaking of times, I was holding her at 9:08 AM when she sneezed for the first time as I turned her into the light coming through the window.  Silly parents - we remember funny things like that :)  She’s sneezed quite a bit and had the hiccups several times also - which is pretty cute since she sounds like a little frog or squeaky pigeon.

So Bernice made it for the birth of her third grandchild and cut her cord.  Jess had the privilege of cutting the cord when Bernice gave birth to her third child, Jess’ sister Denise, almost 17 years ago.  How cool is that!

Most of this entry was written from the 4th floor of the Lovelace Women’s Hospital where we spent two days after Sarah was born.  We had wonderful service there and enjoyed the time bonding with our little girl.  But it’s nice to be home now.

Now for the pictures!  I’m still figuring out what the best way is to insert photos into these blog entries, but if you click on one of the pictures below, you can see a slightly larger version of it.  And all these pictures and lots of others are online at the following site and can be viewed as a slideshow where they all appear larger:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jcwoods1/IntroducingSarahMichelle