Claire Costin Sterner arrived on July 22nd at 6:27 a.m. weighing 8lbs 11 oz and 20.5 inches long. She is perfect and sweet and we love her so much. Her middle name is my Grandma Beth's maiden name and I can already tell she is just as wonderful as her namesake.
Claire decided that she wanted to also vote in favor of the 22nd as her birthday and just to make things interesting, broke my water at 3:00 a.m., exactly an hour before my alarm was set to go off to get ready to go into the hospital for a scheduled c-section. This was very alarming for me, as I had read absolutely nothing about natural childbirth since I was pregnant with Bryn and had no idea what to do. I happened to be sleeping down in the living room one one side of a sectional and my sister was on the other side. She ran upstairs to get Nick, which was pointless, as he just came downstairs and stared into space for about 10 minutes (the man does not wake up easily, apparently even under urgent circumstances). Mom and Dad were already here and Mom helped me get ready. We were at the hospital by 3:45 and since I was not at all dilating (big surprise), they just re-scheduled the c-section to 5:30 instead of 7:30.
We do not have a final official pregnancy picture because I was planning on doing that the morning of the 22nd before the scheduled c-section. Here is a very unflattering picture my dad took a couple of days before she was born to show some family how ridiculous she was sitting. She never did change positions and decided that sticking her rear into my belly button the entire third trimester was the most comfortable for her!
The c-section was somewhat uneventful. I was dreading the insertion of the epidural the most, since with Bryn the anesthesiologist kept missing, but this time they got it in on the first try! It took its sweet time to work, however, and I was pretty scared that I had to tell my doctor not to start cutting a couple of times before the magic potion set in. He eventually started cutting without telling me on a gamble that my nerves were causing me to think I could still feel it. Glad that gamble went well. I also remember very little of the c-section, as my blood pressure continued to drop and they were pumping me with all kinds of drugs. Nick has said that I was saying some pretty ridiculous things in what seemed like the eternity it took for them to get her out. When the doctor finally got her out (rest assured, that this was a head-size problem not a doctor problem), she let out a loud wail and was ready to meet her family! After getting over the shock of seeing a full head of hair, we immediately agreed that she looked exactly like her big sister. Here are the first pictures of our sweet girl.
Claire has been obsessed with sucking on her fingers since she came out. Here she is in the recovery room. We did things a little different this time and spent all of recovery time just the three of us. This gave us some valuable time with her and time to establish nursing and also allowed for a less stressful/scary experience for Bryn meeting her for the first time.
Claire's first bath!
Once we were in our mother-baby room, Nick went to the waiting room and got Bryn and they got to meet each other. Bryn was so very sweet and excited. Mommy and Daddy were excited to see her too.
Meeting Grammy, Grandpa and Aunt Elizabeth.
Meeting Mi Mi and Papa Joe.
Happy family!
She passed her very first test!
Claire's many visitors. Everyone was so nice and thoughtful. Apologies if I was a little loopy. Morphine rocks.
Close ups of Claire.
Bryn had a lot of fun at the hospital and even spent most of a day with us playing with her toys and Claire. She was really good.
She had some pretty fun times at home with my Mom and Elizabeth too.
I shouldn't talk about The Walking Dead in Claire's first baby post, so I'll leave it at this and note that rooting babies are pretty terrifying to a newly nursing mom.
Finally going home! We are so happy to have Claire home with us and it seems like she has always been here. She's absolutely precious.
