Here She Is... Claire Ellise

We are SO EXCITED to announce that the Lord has blessed us with a precious baby girl!

Claire Ellise was born August 6, 2009 at 10:02am.

She weighed 7 lb. 11 oz. and measured 20.5 inches in length.

She has tiny little features; dark blue eyes (we'll see if they change); long skinny arms, legs, fingers and toes; squishy little cheeks; a super-cute face; and two big brothers who ADORE her!

Here's the story....

We arrived at the hospital at 6am on Thursday. We were scheduled for 8am, but we had a slight delay because there was a woman who needed an emergency c-section ahead of us. I was that woman needing to bump someone else five years ago, so we didn't mind. It was nice to have the extra time, actually, because I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic they gave me and needed some time to let the Benadryl take over. Here we are waiting.

Things were in good shape after they gave me the anesthesia and got me past the associated nausea and super-low blood pressure leading to cold sweats and lightheadedness. I know that those things are going to happen, so I warn them, and they have the stuff ready to remedy things and get me back to normal quickly. This photo was taken during the surgery. Kind of funny, huh?

And here is Miss Claire making her entry into the world! They invited Chet to look over the curtain when they had just her head out, but for some reason, he declined and waited until this moment! :) Seriously, I'm pretty sure I would have passed out on his behalf if he had actually looked over that curtain. Smart guy!

Ladan and Gabe were in good hands with Chet's mom and sister back at the house. They were very excited to meet their baby sister! Ladan was very quiet and reserved entering the room, because he knew what had just happened to me and that I'd be pretty sore. He crawled up into the bed with me very gently and asked if he could hold his baby sister. He is AMAZING with her! He holds her so gently, gives her kisses on her cheeks and forehead and tells her he loves her all the time. He will literally hold her for an hour, and he asks multiple times a day if he can sit with her. It's so great to see him protecting her and caring for her this way!

Gabe loves her too! He wants to give her hugs and kisses. He also enjoys messing up her hair and saying, "Crazy hair!" to her. He was thankful to hold this little dog that my mom sent for Claire. He took care of the dog while Ladan took care of Claire. It was really fun!

Here are some of Claire's visitors...

Aunt Megan, Keith Sparrow (Claire is the first baby Keith has held, and he was FANTASTIC with her!), and my mom (Stephanie)

Chet's mom (Glenna), and of course another one of Mommy and Ladan with Claire.

The sleeping girl. She loves to sleep, that's for sure!

We spent quite a bit of time like this in the room... me holding Claire with the boys at the foot of the bed eating a snack or watching a movie. In these pictures, they're watching Tom and Jerry for the first time ever. Ladan was belly laughing through much of it!

We were also blessed to have a helicopter pad right outside our window! The boys got to see helicopters lift off and land several times a day, which was great fun! As soon as Gabe would come into the room, he'd run to the window and exclaim, "I wanna' see a pretty cool helicopter!" Chet was at least as entertained by it as the boys were!

On our way home Sunday morning!

And here we are at home! The boys were sporting their "Big Brother" t-shirts that my mom sent them, and they were ready to greet their baby sister as soon as we arrived!

While we were in the hospital, Claire lost quite a bit of weight--10% of her original weight--but she was on the uphill climb by the time we left. We took her to the doctor today, and she had gained back another ounce. She isn't in any danger of jaundice, so that's great! And it seems like everything else has checked out okay.

While this c-section has been difficult just because of what it is, my recovery has been better than the other two for sure. There seem to be several reasons for this. I didn't have to labor like I did with Ladan, and Claire wasn't gripping my insides like Gabe was. They also gave me a binder to wrap around my mid-section in the hospital, and it is an amazing help! I didn't have anything like this with either of the boys, but I so wish I had! It really helps to keep things off my incision and holds my muscles in better position so that they're not constantly being strained all day. I'm very thankful for this band of elastic!

We are more than grateful for the extra help we've had! Chet's mom is here with us for a total of 10 days, which is a huge sacrifice for her at this point (though she would never ever make us feel badly about it). She's taking time away from work and from getting her own home back in order after the tornado that went through a few months ago. She's excellent help! After she goes, my mom and then my stepmom are coming to extend our help for an extra week and a half or so. Not everyone has this kind of help, and we are not taking it for granted!

Well, I'm off to try to get some sleep! It's a good thing I'm on pain medication that requires me to sleep. Otherwise, I'd probably be overdoing it right now!

(For some weird reason, I cannot get Blogger to follow directions when I return down to start a new paragraph... and I also have no energy left to continue trying just so it looks perfect... so thanks for bearing with me!)