Welcome Marin (i.e. Drama, drama, drama...)!!!

Marin Anne Williams was welcomed into the world on April 30. She weighed in at a whopping 8lb 10oz and was 21 1/2" long! Long girl! She was a full inch longer than Cade... wow. That's exactly how long Kelsey was when she was born. Cool. Plus... she kind of looks like her Aunt Kelsey did when she was born...

So, I'll spare you the birthing details, which were kind of intense. I will share the fact that I didn't get my freaking epidural until I was 7 cm dilated. HELLO! Talk about pain people. They had trouble getting in my I.V. b/c my veins kept collapsing or something. They had to call the anesthesiologist to come put in my I.V.... that took 30 mins for him to get there. Then I had to wait for the drip of fluids to get in me... another 30 minutes. Then I could get the epidural... minor complications with that... so that took 30 minutes... GEEZ! But Marin is here nonetheless and there you have it.

She is a wonderful baby. She has her days and nights mixed up for sure. I have to literally wake her up in the day to feed her after she's been asleep for 4 hours straight... and then at night... well, let's just say I basically try to sleep in the glider between nursings while holding her because the second I put her in the bassinet she wakes up. I think I might have gotten 3 hours of sleep last night and even that was interrupted sleep. Hopefully she'll figure things out soon. I'm just trying to enjoy the moments we have together.

So -- the story. About an hour after Marin was born, my father-in-law collapsed in the waiting room when his back gave out on him. So... he was wheeled down to emergency and doped up on super narcotics. My mother-in-law was keeping Cade, so she had to leave to put Cade to bed. Well, my father-in-law couldn't even sit up on his own, so he couldn't go in the car with her to our house... so he slept on the couch in my recovery room for the night. Glad we had the room and glad he was so doped up he didn't know what was going on around him. If you don't know it, the night you have your baby isn't exactly glamorous. Your body is displayed for all to see and you have lots of blood/nasty issues. Anyway...

The next day, he still couldn't sit up. So they wheeled me in my recovery bed out of the way so that they could get him out on another stretcher. He went back to emergency and took enough drugs for Carol (mother-in-law) to get them both home to Hot Springs. They made it...so that's good. But there goes our house/dog/Cade-sitters. So my mom and dad took Cade, some friends from church came and let out the dogs. But woops! My chihuahua BIT HIM when he was getting her out of the crate. Drew blood, people. Not good. I felt horrible about that.

We get released from the hospital on Wednesday, only to get to the parking lot to find a flat tire. Had to fix that on the way home.

Got home. Time to relax with the new baby. Just kidding!!!! Two hours later, a huge storm left us without power and neighborhood rumor held that it could be several days before it was back on. So pack up 2 dogs, diapers, new baby, clothes, food from the fridge, and head to my mom and dad's house. It was a good thing we did, too, because we didn't get power back until Saturday. So we spent 3 nights there.

It was trying and David and I did our best to keep our senses of humor roaring, but it was a rough week. Things are better-settled now as we get to know our new family-of-four unit. We've already eventured out to Target with the clan and all went well there... of course, I had David to help. I'm wondering when I'll get the adventuresome spirit up to do an outing... gulp ... alone. We'll see.

Anyway, for now, enjoy the pic of our new beautiful baby girl. I just gaze at her in amazement. God is so good.