Welcome to the world, Elora

I've been offline for the last four days... because I had my baby on Monday! (11 days early)

Born at 12:21pm, 19th February 2007.
Weight 3010g
Length 49.5cm
Head circumference 33.5cm

The labour was surprisingly quick. Not as quick as with Atticus, but in a way I knew that one was coming (had a bunch of early signs) - this one came upon us with no warning (no "show" at all and the waters didn't break - had to be broken right at the end)! The first contraction was at around 6:30am and my mother took me to hospital a little after 10am. Dan had taken the kids to school/child care and gone to work (knowing that he wouldn't get a full day in, but hoping to get at least half a day of work!).

The "second stage" of the labour (the actual pushing part) was the most surprising part of all! It took about 10 minutes!! When they told me that the head was out I could not believe it - I had expected it to take much longer. What a relief! Everything went really well and I have the most gorgeous little baby girl, who looks exactly like Atticus when he was born, except a lot skinnier and with thicker, blacker hair.

We finally got to come home today - tonight should be interesting. Atticus has visited us in hospital but it will really hit home that the baby is ours when he sees her here. Dante was much better prepared and has been really lovely.

I'm going to go and have a rest now but will write more and post more pictures soon.

Yay us!