Welcome little one!

Emily Mae Wolf was born on Thursday, April 3rd at 2:36 p.m.! I arrived at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning while Ryan got the kids off to school. Pitocin was started at about 8:00 and Marlee broke my water at about 9:00. At that point, I was dilated to a 5 and we thought that I would be delivering before noon. I got my epidural about 9:30 a.m. and things slowed down a little. Unfortunately, Emily's heartrate kept dropping so I had an oxygen mask on for over half of my labor.

About 1/2 hour before it was time to push, my epidural wore off (the medication ran out). The CRNA was paged and he came and dosed me with the fast-acting medication, the regular epidural medication, and Fentanyl into my epidural catheter. Needless to say, I was SO numb when it came time for delivery. It was nice not to feel pain but I was pretty much worthless when it came to control over my legs.

Three pushes and 1 minute later, Emily arrived. She didn't cry at all after birth, so her Apgar scores were a little low. She didn't even really cry very much in the nursery. But her breathing and color were great so she was able to come back to us right after her bath. She weighed 8 lb. 12 oz. and 20" long. My second biggest baby... Had we waited another 10 days until her actual due date, she would have been huge!!!!

I was lucky to be able to deliver and recover where I work... Both of us were given great care and were well pampered. It was also nice to know what was going on and to have some work experience there.

We came home on Saturday at about 2:00 p.m. Emily isn't a great sleeper at night - she was up from about 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. this morning. But she is content and doesn't really cry unless she is hungry. I am feeling pretty good and am lucky that my mom is here until Wednesday and Ryan is off next weekend. I am grateful for the Lortab and Motrin that I was prescribed, however!! I am off for 8 weeks from work... I'm sure that won't feel like enough time when it ends.

The kids are absolutely in love with Emily. We spent most of our time mediating fights about whose turn it is next to hold her. Even Megan will sit for 1/2 hour, just holding her, gazing at her, and cooing at her. Kailey has been a huge help - I'm lucky to have such a responsible 12-year-old.

Following are some pictures that we have taken over the last couple of days...