1 Day Old

Steve took a bunch of pictures while we were in the hospital and these are my favorite...

We have a daughter:)

Isla Claire Murray made her debut Friday, February 10th at 8:15 PM weighing 7 lbs 2 oz and was 21 inches long. Her birth was such an incredible experience for us and something we will NEVER forget!

We started out going to the hospital the night before so that they could give me some sort of cervical ripening medication. They needed to do that because they were going to induce me the next morning and I was not dilated at all! The medication was supposed to stay in for 12 hours and then they would take it out and induce me an hour later. Turns out the medicine was enough to start my labor on it's own! 

Around 3 am I started experiencing painful contractions a few minutes apart. They gave me some pain medication to help me go back to sleep but around 5 am the contractions were getting so bad that the pain medicine did nothing! 

Before we knew it my contractions were 2 minutes apart and very painful! I didn't realize at that time that I was able to get the epidural so around 10:00 am the nurse came in and asked me if there was some reason I hadn't asked for one yet. Once I realized I was in full blown labor I got it quick and oh how I loved my epidural:) 

Right after the epidural I was still only dilated to about a 2 so my doctor came and broke my water. Normally breaking the water is supposed to speed up the process but for some reason it slowed mine down so they ended up having to start me on the pitocin anyways. Around 5:00 pm I was dilated to a 10 and ready to start pushing!

This part was incredibly difficult for me. There was a number of things that sort of went wrong. I was pushing for a little over 3 hours and during this time they had me oxygen because the babies heartbeat was a little slow and mine was a little fast. I felt very tired and lightheaded throughout the whole process and pretty soon developed a high fever that they were worried about. They were also concerned about the length of time I was pushing for. I heard the word C-section being passed around and that eventually gave me the motivation in the end to finally push her out! In the middle of pushing my epidural also ran out... That was painful! About 45 minutes of no epidural and the anesthesiologist finally came in to refill it. 

Throughout this whole process Steve and my mom were with me and they were amazing! I don't know what I would have done without them. Steve was the best! He really took good care of me and by the end I felt closer to him than I have ever felt in my life! My mom was so warm and relaxed and totally kept me calm in the midst of chaos! Also, my doctor (and friend) Laura was awesome! She went above and beyond and even though she was on maternity leave came in to deliver me! I really appreciated her positive and caring demeanor, she was awesome and I can't thank her enough!

When Isla was finally born I was exhausted and overwhelmed but I was so excited to finally have my baby! She is perfect and even though the labor experience was hard I would do it a million times over because she is totally worth it all!

My baby just seconds old! 

 Such a proud father:)

Isla's first bath 

My baby is tall! 

 Ready to go home!

We are so grateful for a happy and healthy baby. She has been such a joy already in so little time and we can't imagine our lives without her:)

Maternity pictures

Tomorrow is officially our due date and we are celebrating by posting some pictures from our maternity photo shoot... It is really important for me to remember what it is like to be pregnant and I really wanted our daughter to be able to see pictures of me when she was inside:) Steve said the photo shoot reminded him of getting engagement photos done and in a way it kind of was like that! We think they turned out great though and are so excited to share them with you!

Also, if we don't have her by Friday they are going to induce me. I am scheduled to go in this Thursday evening to get some sort of cervical ripening drug and will stay overnight, then they will induce me the next morning. We are definitely having a baby this week!!! Wish us luck:)