Here It Is -- The Baby Update

Dude, we did it!  First off, to calm the raging masses, some baby photos:

Day 1 in the real world.

Baby and auntie.

Getting ready to take her home!

Grandpa and his first granddaughter.

Vogue-ing in sleep.

OK, now that that's out of the way, some details.  An abbreviated version.  Evelyn Athena Marshall was born 11/30/13 at 11:28pm at OHSU via C-section, 9 days late.

Labor.  It was, you know... laborious.  I woke up on Thanksgiving day with contractions that were stronger and closer together, but still not painful.  At about 9:30pm on Thanksgiving (we were watching Catching Fire in the movie theater), the contractions started getting closer together and more painful.  We went to the hospital after the movie was over (it was a good movie!) and they sent us home until things progressed a little farther.  We got home at about 3am-- my water broke in bed at 4:30am on Friday.  After a few more hours of laboring at home, we headed in to the hospital.  I managed about 18 hours total of unmedicated labor, and then got the epidural.  When I got the epidural, my contractions had been about 3 minutes apart for several hours, but I was still dilated to only about 2cm (a VERY depressing fact to learn after 18 hours of pain). 

Anyway, with the epidural, my contractions slowed down, so they gave me pitocin, and then intrauterine monitoring, and after another 22 hours in labor, I was only dilated to 5cm total.  The babies head was starting to swell, my white blood cell count and my temperature were going up, and my water had been broken for about 42 hours.  The doctors were concerned with the potential for infection, and so a C-section it was.  I was a bit (as in, VERY) sad about that.  There were two things I had really wanted in the birthing process-- a healthy baby and a vaginal delivery.  BUT,  a healthy baby was the most important part, so into surgery we went.  It was an intense process-- I've never had a major surgery before.  And then all of a sudden I had a baby!

Holy crap, we have a baby.  She's really cute.  I'm biased, of course, but still.  It's been a bit of an adjustment so far, but we're coping.  We're a little sleep deprived, but otherwise doing well.  It's amazing how quickly your entire heart gets wrapped up in such a little package.  Newborns don't breathe regularly like we do-- they have pauses of 10-20 seconds where they don't breathe at all occasionally-- and in the middle of the night, I swear my heart stops every time she does it, even knowing it's normal. 

Also, I can't stop staring at her.  If she wasn't my daughter, it'd be creepy. We have all kinds of nicknames for her, as you might have guessed-- E, or Ev, obviously.  But we've also decided that she's a total gangster, and so we've abbreviated her nickname from in utero (us, abbreviate stuff?  No way!), and now instead of LTB, she's Lil' Teeb.  Or Teebs.  Or LT.  Because LTB is just too many syllables.  Jason has also changed her abbreviation from LTB to TTB-- that's Ticking Time Bomb, if you want the full nickname.  I'm calling her Ravenous Beast and Hungry Hungry Hippo.  These might not go over well as she gets older, but they're totally appropriate for the moment.  :)

So, yeah!  Life.  It has completely changed, as I know everyone said would happen beforehand, and we were supposed to totally know what that meant.  Except we didn't.  And now we do.  Sleep is a precious commodity.  I've never met a more adorable individual in my whole life than this tiny little girl.  Jason might just be a slight bit excited about her.  :)  We've been having an excellent stream of visitors who apparently like us-- they keep bringing us food and alcohol and dessert and stuff!  And holding the baby.  It's amazing.  Thank you guys, so much. 

Jason's mom has been in town since we got home from the hospital, which has been great.  My dad is thrilled, as you might imagine, so he's been spending a fair amount of time over at our apartment as well.  And now Jason's sister and niece and nephew are also in town visiting for a couple of days, and it's just awesome to see how everyone loves little babies.  It's pretty damn great. 

LTB makes the greatest faces while she sleeps.  And I never knew that babies are crosseyed quite a bit-- man, is that ever funny.  I'm sure she doesn't appreciate it, but we can't help laughing.  Amazing.

Also, in the hospital, they also sent a photographer over to take a few photos of the little one right after birth.  They are up for viewing here: Baby Bella Photography  Enter the access code:  shal1130marshall  They are only available on the website until December 16th, so if you want a print of something, go there soon.  We'll probably do another photo session one of these days, but I don't know when.  They're pretty cute.  You might like them.  Check out a couple:

The baby yawn-- otherwise known as adult kryptonite.  Don't tell me you didn't 'Aaawww' for that one.

Alright, that's the update.  I'm light on wit here, guys, but let's blame it on lack of sleep, okay?  Hopefully the next post will be more entertaining.  If we haven't seen you  yet, come over!  Come meet Evelyn, and come keep the adults company, so we can talk about more than poop and spit up for a little while.  :)