Elsie Rose's Birth-Day Story

So my birthday was January 16th and we had been saving the last two pieces of birthday cake in the freezer until our baby girl was born and, well...
I was getting impatient... Pregnant women like cake, you know! On February 2nd we had a big blizzard come through and I had read that sometimes storms with their low barometric pressure can cause women to give birth and I was hoping we'd have our girl soon. That night, I began having regular contractions so after getting stuck in our driveway, we called Lucas' parents to get David and have him spend the night over and their house. After all the stress of not being able to get our car out, however, my contractions stopped. They started again after we decided to wait at home but by 2am had stopped again.
Then after feeling very antsy for our girl for a few more days, I found myself with regular contractions again while out on our Thursday date-night on Feb 3. We went to the mall to walk around and the contractions became 3 minutes apart so we again settled David at his grandparents (who were so kind and flexible to help us out twice!!) and headed to the hospital hoping things wouldn't stop this time... and they didn't. It was a rather long and slow labor, but the nurses kept commenting on how happy I was for being so far progressed and I really felt very little pain until the very end.

After 20 hours of labor and some painful but blessedly brief pushing, our beautiful baby girl was born. A new person is here! Elsie Rose Hedding was born on Feb. 4th at 1:11PM weighing 6lbs. 9oz. and measuring 18 in. After looking forward so much to her arrival, I found myself mostly relieved to be done with the long labor when they first handed her to me. As the hours and days have gone by, however, and I have gotten to study her sweet face and watch her stretch out and learn to sleep and eat and snuggle, I am loving her more each day!

Lucas is so pleased to be the Daddy to a daughter and was so calm and helpful through the whole thing. He loves when it is his turn to hold Elsie to burp and change her and we are both so much more comfortable with newborn care this second time around.
Little David (23 months) was curious and happy to meet his little sister both at the hospital and now at home. He knows to leave her be when she is sleeping but sometimes likes to push his chair up to her crib and watch her sleep. He also likes to kiss her before naptime and bedtime and is very good about keeping his hands away from her face but patting her gently. So far, he seems to be enjoying getting to know his little sister.
I am so enjoying these sweet days with Lucas home from work to help. We get to have our whole family together and it is so nice! I really wish I could slow down time to stretch these sweet, early days out! Elsie's big job right now is to learn to eat and gain weight. David is learning about being a big brother and so far, carrying the mantle admirably. I am making myself rest and let Lucas take care of things while I heal and adjust to the nightly feedings. And Lucas is doing a wonderful job making to-do lists with me each day and keeping our home running very smoothly. I know I'm a little emotional right now, but life is so good, it seems normal to cry. God has been so very good to us!

Blizzard

David and Daddy are exploring the snow drifts around the front porch. Both of them thorougly enjoy playing in the snow and cry when they have to come inside.

David was a great help in shoveling the front sidewalk. He had a hard time throwing snow up over his head, but he did it anyway.

These are tears of joy.

The shared driveway took several hours to shovel, but its worth it. The sun came out and melted started melting the remaining snow so you can see parts of the pavement.