Brand new Penny Lou (Pics to get us up to date)

Sleeping at the hospital.


Daddy and baby.


Sleeping beauty.


Mommy and baby.


Sleepy girl.


Penny Pumpkin!


Bored with Halloween.


Penny's first bottle. Daddy is getting help from Voodoo AND the Justice League!


First bath in the sink.


On her playmat.


Not a fan of bonnets yet.


After a bath.

Okay, okay, okay... It is much delayed but here is the story of Penny's arrival.

Monday October 12th Amber went to bed early, like she had a tendency to do later in the pregnancy, and I stayed up to do some Tonehammer work, since Tuesday is a day off for me. Eventually around 2am I went upstairs, got in bed, and fell right asleep. At about 4:30am Amber is standing over me shaking me awake, "Baby, baby, my water broke."

"Oh, shit!"

Amber took a shower while I double checked that we had all our bags properly packed. I took a shower and then woke Kristen to let her know that the game was afoot, and that we were leaving soon. It was all very exciting and dreamlike.

It was storming out. According to the nurses a lot of babies are born on stormy days. The lower pressure system being enough of a change to break the water.

We got to the hospital around six and got all settled in. Our room:


We hung out and Amber labored really well for a few hours, and then it started to get really difficult. At about 9am we asked if Amber could have and epidural. And after a little while of figuring out how much medicine was going to be needed it was smooth sailing:


At 1pm our doc came in, checked out the situation, and determined it was time to start pushing.
five minutes and three pushes later we had a baby.


And here is the first family portrait.

Dr. Magic Fingers

We had a an appointment this morning and the doctor did a quick little procedure called sweeping/stripping the membrane. Apparently she is somewhat known for being very successful with this procedure, so Amber might be having our baby soon. Fingers are crossed. Here is a picture of us taken from what will soon be Penny's point of view.

38 weeks.

So, we have hit the 38 week mark and all is well. We spent a couple hours early this morning dealing with contractions and back pain, and I thought that my guess would be right. Nope.

We're still both in good spirits. Amber is tired of the back pain that wakes her up most nights, but for the most part she is a champ. Any day now...

Beauty

Here are a couple of pics of Amber I took whilst she was bathing. I was practicing with the new camera. They're a little dark, but still nice.

One year anniversary, and nursery pics.

Hey! So today is the one year anniversary of our marriage. Woo hoo! We went up to the MOMA in SF and reenacted our first date. It was a great day.

No baby tonight, so it looks like Bonnie and my Mom were guessed wrong. The next guess was for Tuesday the 6th, and it was made by me. Amber is quite finished being pregnant, so here's hoping...

Also, we finished with the nursery yesterday, so here are some new pics I took with our super sweet new camera.

37 weeks

So, today marks 37 weeks according to the Docs estimate. After staying up most of last with contraction like things Amber didn't go into work today. She's done. She was supposed to work all week but that isn't gonna happen. Everyone is happier for it.

Today we had a leisurely breakfast at the Beehive Cafe, I finished up probably the last of the Tonehammer work that I'll do before Penny is here, and we went shopping at Babies R Us to get the last of the stuff we wanted to have.

Today was a nice day.

She'll be here soon!