she's here

After 40 weeks and 6 days of waiting, Norah finally decided to grace us with her presence on Thursday August 28th at 7:28am. She weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and was 21 inches long. Absolutely perfect and absolutely gorgeous!

I fully intend to share Norah's entire birth story here. I really enjoyed reading other people's stories to help me prepare for my own labor, and hopefully mine will be helpful to someone else. It may be a while before I post our story though, or post anything at all.

While Norah's birthday was easily the best day of my entire life, it was also the most challenging. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. Truthfully, I think I am still comprehending everything that happened.

Norah's entrance in this world involved me being nearly a week overdue and a scheduled induction. I thought that was nerve wracking, so imagine my surprise when a labor I anticipated being 12 or so hours happened in under 5. It was so fast I was actually almost traumatized by how everything just happened so fast and without my control. I thought that would be the climax of the day. But that wasn't the case at all.

Our baby's birthday also involved a (treatable and manageable- but still scary) heart condition, me in absolute hysterics, a lot of unknowns and confusion, a short NICU visit, a longer CICU visit at a Children's hospital across town (that I wasn't able to join Will and Norah at until 24+ hours after delivery), and what is unquestionably about 48 or so of the hardest hours of my entire life. And what I hope will always be the hardest hours of my entire life.

I have a way of calming myself down any time I get upset or sad about something I can't control. I repeat this phrase inside my head: "This isn't the worst thing you've ever been to. It will pass, and everything will be OK." It always helps. For the first time in my life, it was the worst thing I've ever been through, I didn't know if everything would be OK, and I didn't know if it would ever pass.

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself here. I will absolutely come back with the full story. But after my poor innocent baby being ripped away from me literally seconds after birth, and spending her first few days of life being poked and prodded and tested and all kinds of other things that are unbearable to think about, it may be a while. I will be enjoying my home and my family much more than I ever thought possible.