Hey Shae!

Yeah, there's a story... but you all really only want to see photos so let's get those out of the way first:

Super-fresh:

Hanging out with dad:

Up close and personal:

Shae's birth story in a nutshell:

Jody and I went to dinner on Sunday night -- a last hurrah as "just the two of us." We decided on Italian and I enjoyed a delicious, rich fettucine Alfredo and a glass of Chianti. Yum!

Got home and hunkered down on the sofa for some Sunday night TV. I wasn't feeling entirely comfortable in THE AREA -- some sharp pains (which I attributed to her usual habit of pummeling my lower bitslate in the evening) and just general discomfort. You know, like the discomfort that comes along with being 40-weeks pregnant.

We went to bed per usual. I woke up at about 12:30 with some serious, um, gastrointestinal-area pain. I attributed it to the aforementioned rich Alfredo sauce; got up to go to the bathroom to relieve some of the pressure. Came back to bed and felt the same pain/pressure again about 5-6 minutes later. I noticed it and started to pay attention to the clock... but, really, I just thought I had to return to the toilet.

I'll zip through the next two hours: lots of time in the bathroom. The pain was starting to get serious, but even still I didn't really think it was "time." Jody got out of bed at about 2:30 and asked if everything was okay; I said that I was pretty sure that I was in labor but I didn't want to go to the hospital and get turned around and sent home, so I said we'd keep an eye on the contractions and give them another half-hour. By 3:00, I couldn't remain standing during each contraction (which were coming at about 2-3 minutes apart), so we decided enough was enough, made the call to the doctor and jumped in the car to head to the hospital.

Checked in at the emergency department (slower than molasses!) and hopped in a wheelchair to be taken up to labor & delivery. Got to the L&D triage room (standard procedure for middle-of-the-night check-in) and the on-call nurse asked me to pee in a cup (almost impossible!) and then checked my cervix.

Turns out I was 9.5 cm dilated! I was hustled down to the delivery suite ASAP. There was mention that, because I was so far long, I may have missed the window for an epidural; thank goodness Jody was insistent -- the anesthesiologist was in the room and ready to go within 5 minutes!

Post-epidural was an entirely different story: life was good! I started pushing at a little before 5 a.m.; long story short: Shae Lily Bennigsdorf popped out at 6:03 a.m., covered in slime and absolutely beautiful!

I've literally had two dozen people come in and out of this room in the time I've tried to write this, so I apologize if it's a bit disjointed. Summary statement: labor feels like poop, but when said poop is debilitatingly painful, don't ignore it!