Photo Credit: photographybyshawnee.com

We are so excited to announce the arrival of our beautiful daughter, Claire Elizabeth, born May 8th at 9:28pm. She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce (the same as me when I was born!!) and was 18.5 inches long. She already has quite the personality and definitely knows what she likes and doesn’t like.

It’s amazing to think that almost 2 weeks have already passed by since she entered the world. The birth was very long and difficult but so worth it. Now we understand what people meant when they said to us, “Forget the birth plan”, because that’s exactly what happened with us.

Claire was estimated to be about 8 pounds 3 ounces the Friday before her due date which made our OB nervous because I’m so petite. When we went in for our appointment on her due date, we decided to go for an induction since I had not gone into labor yet and she was only going to get larger. The hospital’s inductions were booked for the rest of the week but luckily there was a cancellation that day so they thought they could slip us in to that slot. We had to call almost every hour that night to see if they could take us but it ended up being an extremely busy night for them. The next morning, I called and they said we could head on in. We arrived at 7:30am on Wednesday the 7th. 36 hours of labor and a c-section later, we were holding Claire in our arms. It definitely wasn’t what we planned but, in the end, the #1 item on our birth plan was satisfied – making sure that she was safe and healthy.

We left the hospital last Monday and have been trying to get into a routine since then. So far, it’s been going fairly well except for the exhaustion. It’s hard to adjust to waking up every few hours for feedings and I’m sure all parents out there understand that. But, looking at our beautiful daughter makes it all worth it. She is such a dream come true.