Introducing Hannah!

Hannah Callista Hart was born Saturday, March 9th at 8:49pm after 16 hours of labor. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 13 oz and was 20.5" long.

Birth Story (for those who have not already heard it):
My water broke at 4am Saturday morning and we headed to the hospital at 10am after we got Abigail situated with my parents. I wasn't having very regular contractions at that point, so after we checked in, they let us walk around the hospital for awhile to try to get things moving. By 3pm, I was still only at 3cm so they started me on pitocin (argh!). I decided at this point I was just going to make it as far as I could before getting the epidural since I knew they wanted the baby out 24 hours after my water broke and I didn't want to end up with a c-section for "failure to progress." David was an amazing coach and we tried lots of different positions and breathing techniques while laboring through my contractions. At 7pm, we got a new (AMAZING) nurse who checked and told me I was at 7cm. Because of our birth plan, the nurse knew I had originally wanted to try to make it without an epidural (I thought once pitocin started that it would be unlikely to happen that way), and she told me she thought I could do it and would help us get there. Things moved quickly at that point and after some severe pitocin/transition contractions, I went from 7cm to pushing in about 15 min. Four pushes later (and no epidural), Hannah was born! (I won't lie, there were about 10 minutes where I was thinking I was pretty stupid for not getting that epidural!) She was totally healthy and we got to enjoy a beautiful hour of skin-to-skin time with her. SUCH a different experience than when Abigail was born. It was exactly what we were hoping for. Thank you Lord! What a gift!

David helping me labor through transition contractions

 Meeting Hannah!

First Family of Four Picture

Abigail meeting her baby sister

Here are a few snapshots from her first week of life:

 

Daddy and his two girls

 First Bath

Resting with Daddy

Happy First Week of Life Little Precious!