Presents

Rebecca gave Annabelle a scooter the day she was born (for stealing her mom for 3 days :)

The day I got home from the hospital my dad gave Annabelle this cute house that talks and took us out to lunch at a little cafe on our corner. He didn't even know I was going to have the baby when he made his plans to come visit. They were going to stop in for the night on their way to Oregon. Great timing!

You can do ANYTHING for 2 hours!

Introducing Rebecca Helen

We had a beautiful baby girl Rebecca Helen. She weighs 6lbs 14oz and is 19 inches long. She has tons and tons of black hair and is a joy to have.

If you want to know about her birth read on...if not we hope you enjoyed the pictures.

I went to get induced at 7 am on May 27, 2010. I got there and they started my IV and antibiotics right away. My Dr. had a C-Section planned and came back after an hour at 8:30am to break my water and check me. I was still only a 2-3 when we thought I would have progressed to a 4-5. So they started me on pitocin and I wondered if that was the best choice, but I wasn't having any contractions when I got there (which was why I was being induced.) So anyway, the anesthesiologist came in and talked to me about an epidural but I was doing fine at the time so he wanted to come back when I was a 4-5. About an hour later I was calling for the anesthesiologist to come and give me an epidural I was in sooo much pain. The contractions were out of control and they weren't reading them on the monitor nor were they reading Rebecca's heartbeat very well. I felt a little silly getting an epidural so soon and thought I was being a major wimp this time around. The anesthesiologist was busy with someone else so I had to wait 10-15 minutes. When he came in he gave me a little lecture about how this is a teaching hospital and I can't always have the most the experienced person on. blah, blah, blah. (I really didn't want an epidural from the new guy on, my nurse had told me)

Well I had to get my legs off the bed and I was bent over a table and try not to move for a few minutes. OK I could do this I kept telling myself. Well during the don't move time I felt an unbelievable urge to bear down. So as I am sitting up, still as can be, with legs hanging off the table I'm giving birth to my daughter. Literally. When they finally had me turn around in bed I told my nurse that I was pushing. She checked me and sure enough I was a 10 with the baby at +2 and no epidural kicking in yet. Everyone looked amazed. My nurse grabbed two residents and I delivered the baby in about 4 pushes. One of the residents wanted to know if I could breathe through my contractions and wait till the Dr. got there. Ummm NO! Are you kidding me...I was pushing while I didn't have contractions because I was in so much pain.

So Rebecca was born in 2 hours and I had the lovely experience of natural childbirth. Except my epidural did kick in for the stitches and maybe even delivering the placenta. Lovely!

Dance Class

Annabelle LOVES her dance class. It's Saturday morning daddy daughter time. I thought Brent would be the only dad there but it turns out there are quite a few dads. It's pretty much organized chaos but she is learning to follow directions from her teacher and it is a good workout for Brent as well.

Gone Fishin'

For Grandpa Ed: Annabelle came up with fishing all by herself. She has this fishing pole that has hooks and then these little flying bugs (she calls fish) that have big round clasps on them and she goes fishing. It's fun to see her imagination at play. Grandpa Ed will be so proud and when she really goes fishing with him I'm sure it will be just as exciting.

Dinosaur!!!

Annabelle went to a friend's birthday party and got this dinosaur egg. She was sooo excited we had to put it in water that same night. Here is the progression:

Day 1

(don't worry it's a fake butterfly on the table)

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

On day 4 we took it out of the water and look the dinosaur hatched and she played with it for a little while until we had to buy a replacement dinosaur because she is still very oral. She LOVES her dinosaur. Thanks Whitney for this fun experience.