Chloe Louise was born on Friday, February 24th at 4:37 p.m. She was 7 lb 2 oz and 20" long. We are so happy she is here!
Overall the labor was long and boring. It's a good thing we packed card games. I was already 4cm when I got there at 8:00, but the nurses were so busy with other deliveries that the whole thing took forever to get going. My doctor broke my water around 12:45, the contractions got painful around 1:30, and then I had a wonderful epidural around 2:00. Here I am, feeling no pain, just moments before Chloe was born. She arrived in just one push.
My awesome doctor let me have my baby when I wanted. I chose to be induced the day after my parents got home from visiting Ellen in Hawaii. Dr. Yin always tells me things like, "You make this look easy!" I like her a lot. The boys got to meet her when they came later, and they shook her hand and thanked her for the safe delivery of their baby.
Admiring my beautiful baby girl. I just can't take my eyes off of her. It's hard to know who she looks like, but she definitely looks like one of ours. The thing that really sets her apart (other than being a girl) is all her long dark hair. I don't think Levi had this much hair when he was a year old.
She was super alert and looking all around her first hour, and then she got hungry and nursed great for 45 minutes.
My mom almost missed the birth when she went out for a quick walk. We had no idea I was so close (yay epidurals!) until the doctor came to check me and told me not to sneeze until they got the room all set up. So we quickly called my mom to tell her to come back.
Chloe is their 35th grandbaby.
My dad brought the kids down to meet their baby sister a couple hours after she was born. They were all SO excited. Unfortunately the sun had gone down by then, so I didn't get many good pictures.
Tyler's showing us her big yawn.
Our sweet nurse let the boys help her give Chloe her first bath. That was a lot of fun for them, and she told me afterwards that she was so impressed with their medical knowledge.
Chloe didn't like the bath so much.
The most unfornate thing about the whole hospital stay was that I had to share a room, since there were so many deliveries that day. The lack of privacy wasn't too bad, since there was a curtain; but what really bugged me was that I didn't get the window side, so I didn't have good lighting for pictures. That's my favorite thing to do in the hospital - take pictures of my new baby. So before I left I asked my roommate if I could go to her side to take a few pictures. But the lighting wasn't very good by then (this picture is kinda blurry) and Chloe wasn't in a great mood at the time. I figured I might as well go home.
We left when she was 24 hours old. My parents watched the kids all day, and they made us a huge "Welcome Home Chloe and mom!" sign. The house was clean and there was a wonderful ham dinner waiting for us. It was so good to be home.
Chloe woke up every couple of hours last night, but that was much better than when I was pregnant and had insomnia and couldn't sleep past 3 or 4 every morning. It was also better than being in the hospital when my roommate's baby screamed louder than any newborn I'd ever heard. Yep, it's good to be home.
This past week has gone by too fast, and I'm not ready for it to be over. But Dave goes back to work tomorrow, and I'll be on my own. Well, not quite. I have lots of helpers around here.
It's hard for the boys to leave Chloe and go to school every day. Then they rush to be the first one to hold her when they get home.
Brennan stayed home sick with a bad cough one day, and it was torture for him not to be able to hold Chloe. I love how she's holding onto his finger in this one.
Levi always says, "I want to hold it!"
He calls her "Toe-y." It's really cute.
We caught her smiling in her sleep.
Mostly she sleeps, of course, but occasionally she opens her big eyes and we all go nuts.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Chloe. It captures her cuteness the best.
One of the things I love about having a baby is that Dave always takes a week off work to help out so I can just focus on recovering and enjoying the baby. Yesterday after he made breakfast, got everyone off to school and went grocery shopping, he gave Chloe her first bath at home.
All done! That feels much better.
Fuzzy after-bath hair!
We were going to do it the Monday before my baby shower (which was moved up kind of last minute) so I could display them there. I saw that at another shower and thought it was a really cute idea. But then I came down with the stomach flu the night before (it was aweful!!), so we did it the following day instead. I was still pretty sore all over, but at least I wasn't nauseous anymore. She had to photoshop out the broken blood vessels on my face.
My belly kind of disappears when I lie on my back. 
I really like how they turned out. I usually just do a quick snapshot right before I have my babies, and they've never been this cute. I'm glad I got them done.
Just 3 1/2 more weeks to go!