Welcome to the world Henley Elizabeth!

Unlike the Nashville flood that occurred during Hayden's birth in 2010 Henley arrived quite peacefully on Tuesday, April 24th.  My labor was relatively short and began with contractions that started around 9pm on Monday evening. We labored and rested at home until about 2:30am when things began to get a little more intense. After talking with the doctor we made our way to the hospital and checked in at around 3am. I hadn't made much progress so they triaged us for a few hours to determine whether or not I was in "real" labor.  I slowly made progress and at 6:30am they fully admitted us and moved us to an LDR room.  At that point I was beginning to really feel my contractions and was getting less time to rest in between. My doctor came to check on my at around 7am and we made the decision to let her break my water to speed things up. She said that if everything went as expected we would have a baby by lunch. Well...pretty immediately after she left everything changed. My contractions became a lot more intense and close together, and I began to have an intense urge to push! The nurse checked me about 20 minutes after my water broke and informed us that I was fully dilated. She then began to frantically call the doctors, nurses, etc into the room.

Henley was born about fifteen minutes later at 8:13am. She weighed in at 7lbs 12oz and was 19inches long.  She was alert and ready to eat!

So far she has been a calm and sleepy little girl! She had a bit of jaundice her first week, but other than that has been perfectly healthy. She eats and sleeps better than Hayden did at her age...or at least better than we remember. At her 2 week appt. she weighed 7lbs 15oz which signals that breastfeeding is going well!

Hayden is so proud of her and is constantly asking about "baby sister." He talks about how "tiny" and "snuggly" she is, and loves to give her lots of hugs and kisses.