Freida

Email if you want her real name. :)

First, the only belly shot I've gotten from any one of my pregnancies:

I kept the image small since it's blurry. I was already hooked up to everything and had just gotten back from the bathroom. The angle of the shot is kind of strange, but my ankles were so swollen.

We started pitocin at 9 am after the usual battery of paper work. It wasn't doing much at all, getting me dilated to about a 4 after 6 hours (having come in at a 3). The dr came in to break my water. 30 mins later, I was at a 5-6, had barely gotten the epidural, and the dr decided to not go back to his office after all. 30 mins after that she was born. It was the lightest epidural I've had and therefore the most dramatic birth. The very worst of the pain was gone but I could still feel people touching my feet and temperature changes. I went from "holy cow, that pressure is intense...." to "I'm pushing and can't stop!" in about 10 hard contractions. It's the first time I havn't been able to control the pushing at all and hollered at the top of my lungs. She was crowning just as the dr ran in. They barely had time to take their places before her head was halfway out. The bed didn't even get taken apart before she was born. My nurse had just barely stepped out to use the bathroom and missed the whole thing.

Frieda was born at 4:06 weighing in at 8 pounds, 11 ounces and 21 inches long. She came out squalling and looking totally bewildered. She already has eyebrows and eyelashes and black fuzzy hair.

By the window. It wasn't direct light but those new eyes didn't like it.

One of my fav things about new borns: The faces they make.

Attempting to open the eyes and look outside.

Her hands are slightly foreground in these shots but they really are that large. She has fingers just like her dad and brother. I call them Gollum fingers, since they're so long and skinny.