Welcome to the World Baby Girl!

Margaret Melissa Mannion arrived on 13 July 2009 at 10:32 pm. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces, and is 20 1/4 inches long. Currently, her eyes are blue and her hair looks strawberry blond. She's a great nurser, pretty good sleeper, and really resents being woken up or bothered during a nap. I guess we should place her in the redhead category based on temper alone!

Here's me as we kicked off the induction. As I mentioned in my Facebook status the other day, I was still wearing my wedding rings. Both other times my hands had swollen too much by about the 8th month to wear them anymore.
They started me at about 8:30 that morning. As always, it took a while. They gave me misoprostl (?) to ripen my cervix, and started the pitocin around 2. A couple hours later, I got my epidural, smoothest one yet, and my doctor broke my water. Boy, do I love epidurals. Unfortunately, right after that things got a little slow. My contractions weakened and became really irregular. I started to get really worried that we were heading for a c-section. I had no problem with the idea of a caesarean, I just didn't want to have to recover from one while chasing my other kids!

Fortunately, things picked up and around 8, my contractions intensified and regulated. Unfortunately, Maggie's heart rate would drop as I contracted. I was starting to think we were going to be 3 for 3 on cords around the neck. Fortunately, we shifted my postion, got into a good place, her heartbeat steadied and at about 10:15, I started pushing. 17 minutes later, Maggie was here.

This isn't a good picture of her, but I sure look happy to see her.
Turns out part of the reason things took so long was that Maggie was tring to come out a bit transverse. Her poor little head took quite a beating.
She recovered from it, though, and got a 9 on both Apgars.
Proud papa and his beautiful girl.
Still trying to be zen while being really mad about her first bath.
Look at thse cute sisters.
Our new and improved family.
Addie sweetly saying hi.
Chloe really was more excited than she seems to be in this shot.
See?

Addie was more excited about my big cup of icewater. Everytime Bracken brought the girls in, she would head straight to it. I'm so glad I got to bring that cup home!
Look at her! 36 hours old and already holding that little head up.
So now we're all home and doing well. I'm really feeling quite good, knock on wood. We'll see how the night goes.