Welcome to the world, baby Keeley

For a variety of reasons, none of them medical, I was scheduled to be induced on Monday, April 30th. My due date was May 6th, and I was kind of glad to avoid a May birthday since the beginning of the month is already kind of busy with Mother's day and our anniversary. Anyway, we were told the hospital would call anytime after midnight on that day so we all went to bed at a reasonable hour just in case. As it turns out, they called right when our alarm went off to get Sareny ready for school. It worked out perfectly except that Lexi ended up with no time to get ready, because the plan somehow got confused and she got Sareny ready for school instead of Bampa. We straightened that out and she threw on some clothes in record time and we took off for the hospital. Because I was being induced, grammy and bampa were both able to come to our house. Grammy Jo and Lexi came to the hospital and Bampa stayed home to take care of Isaac and Finley.

Being induced was way different than going on my own, because we just kind of sat around waiting, and I was perfectly comfortable throughout the experience. Here I am, waiting for some action.

Lexi decided my hair was a little bit too much wild wahine, so she straightened it while we were waiting for the pitocin to kick in and do something. Grammy Jo helped out by feeding me ice chips, and I checked out was on the TV. Which was nothing.

After a couple hours had passed, I started to feel some of the contractions. They weren't super painful, but I wondered why I could feel them again, since I had an epidural. I asked the nurse and she didn't seem concerned about it and sat and chatted with me for about 10 minutes. Then she decided she might as well check me. Once she did, she said in a falsely calm voice, "I'm going to go call your doctor right now so he doesn't miss the birth of your child." This was maybe about 5 hours after they had started the pitocin. The doctor came in and told me to push on my next contraction. I felt one coming and started pushing. I hadn't finished my first push when the dr. said, "That's enough pushing!" and I heard a little baby girl crying. She was crying before she was all the way out and kept it up for quite a while.She wasn't sure about this new world where she was poked and prodded, and I don't really blame her.

This picture was taken immediately after she was born and they put her up on my tummy. We called bampa and the kids using facetime on the ipod, and they got to see her just seconds after she was born as well. That was pretty cool. She cried the whole time we were talking to them.

Still crying...

She liked when her daddy held her.

I wish I had a "hi kid" sticker for this picture, but oh well. Maybe someday she will be mad at me.

Keeley River was born at 3:25 pm and weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces.

In this picture you can kind of see Keeley's old man hair. She came out completely bald on top, with a nice ruff of hair along the bottom.

Lexi and Grammy each got to hold her, although I have no pictures of Grammy holding her. I am holding myself blameless in this situation, since I was laying in the hospital bed relatively oblivious to the world and with legs that wouldn't have supported me for half a second if my life depended on it. Grammy Jo was going to cut the cord like she did with Finley, but at the last minute she said Lexi could do it.

Me and my brand new baby girl, less than an hour old.

She finally settled down and slept.

She was just so precious and sweet!

Wearing the giant hat some sweet old ladies must crochet for the hospital.