And then the family was three.....

Allow me to introduce you to our new baby girl. Alyssa Nicole Menke was born at 12:33 am on Friday 11/7. She weighed 9 lbs 3 oz and was 21 and 1/2 inches long. It was a long day. Mandy had trouble sleeping the night before and was awake at 1am on Thrusday morning. We arrived at the hospital at 7am and they started the petocin around 8:45 (Mandy will correct any time errors I have in the next update). Our doctor broke her water around 11 and she hung in through the contractions through 2:30. She had an epidural and that really calmed her down and relieved most of her pains. She was dialated 2 cm most of the morning and they said is she didn't progress then we would go to plan b (c-section), but she moved to 3 cm at 3pm, so they we stuck with the plan to have her naturally. She then went to 7 cm at 5:30 and was moving right along. They turned her epidural off since her legs were getting really swollen and she couldn't move them. She gradually progressed to 9 then 10 cm around 9:45 when she started to push (13 hours into the process). They had turned her epidural back on to relieve some pain, but it wasn't even close to being as effective as it was before. Mandy was in some pain because the baby was face up (instead of down) making labor more difficult. Also, the baby was pushing on Mandy's back causing extreme pain whenever she was on her back pushing; so we did most of the pushing on her side. After about 2 hours of intense pushing the baby wasn't moving down, so we decided to have the c-section. I was able to be by Mandy's side during her surgery,but she really doesn't remember me being there much. She was exhausted and was actually napping in between contractions when she was pushing. In the operating room I heard that the baby was alomost out, so I stood up so I could see the birth. The doctor held the baby up to me and I told Mandy it was a GIRL!!

I couldn't be more proud of Mandy! She exceeded all my expectations and I couldn't believe she hung in there all day and night. We didn't get back to the room until 4am and she got about 1 hour of sleep after that since Alyssa wanted to feed.

Mom and Alyssa are doing great, and they are a pretty good team when it comes to feeding. I am pretty good at changing diapers and swaddling. It is just amazing that we have a little girl, and it is hard to explain the feeling I get when I am holding her and she just stares at me. We should be coming home Monday or Tuesday and will send out more updates then.

I wanted to give a big thanks to our friend Naomi for being with us all day, and our parents for all their love and support thoughout the day too.

Aaron