She's Here!!!

Well, after a long wait she's finally arrived! Our baby was born on May 27th at 9:02 pm, weighing in at 6 pounds 11 ounces, and measuring 18.5 inches. We are naming her Kimball Packard (Kimball is Ashley's mother's maiden name)...Ashley has always had a soft spot in her heart for that name and has always wanted to name her daughter that!

We went to Ashley's doctor's appointment on Tuesday, and as expected, the blood pressure was still high. What we weren't expecting was to be admitted then and there, which we were. So we started our stay in the hospital at 9:30 Tuesday morning with the hope that she would be born sometime that night. They started her on various drugs to prepare for induction which was to take place the next morning. Come 4 am, the doctor started Ashley on oxytocin and she soon began to cramp and had full contractions by 7 am. We were both pretty hopefull that it would go quickly...we were sorely disappointed. After 7 hours of labor, she was still only dilated to 3 cm and had shown little progress despite full contractions. Around 5 pm, she was only at 4 cm.

Ashley passed the time with IV's and contractions.

Kevin passed the time with Battlefield and books.Around 7 pm, she was barely at a 5 and the doctors started talking about a C-section. Just after 8, she was finally up to 7 cm and we hoped that she would deliver within the next couple of hours. Then about 10 minutes later she started to crown and with 20 minutes of pushing Kimball was born!Kimball was cleaned up and we were able to spend some time with her before she was taken to the nursery to get checked out by the Pediatrician. All the tests came back normal. We were finally settled into our small post-delivery room at around 1:30 am after which I promptly was out cold and Ashley breastfed her again.
Kimball is bright-eyed and a very mellow baby so far...hopefully she stays this way! She hasn't hardly cried at all! She's still getting the whole breastfeeding thing down, but she'll pick it up soon. Ashley's mom has been a great help to both of us during this whole thing...thanks!

Kimball Packard is a beautiful baby girl and in the short time she has been with us has brought more love and joy than we thought possible! We're so grateful that she is here and is healthy. Ashley is doing well and is excited to finally have the IV out of her arm, but we're more excited for when we can take Kimball home in a few days!