Whirlwind

Wow, life has been a whirlwind lately but oh, what a joy! There are tons and tons of pictures and little time to take a look at them all.

Here are some highlights from our hospital stay. More pictures to come.

THE DELIVERY DAY

Rachel Elizabeth was born on October 20, 2008 at 12:17 PM. She weighed 8 lbs, 7 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. She shares her birthday with her Granddad Owen and she shares her initials with her Grandfather Chance.



The delivery was a scheduled c-section and being the photographer that he is, Stuart was prepared to take lots of pictures of the whole event. Stuart knows all the technical stuff to take great pictures - ISO settings, aperture, lighting, etc. He was even asking a nurse beforehand about the type of lighting that would be in the operating room so he could go ahead and fix the correct settings on the camera. I asked him to just set the thing on automatic so he could focus on the delivery because I didn't want to hear any talk about camera settings once we were in the operating room.

The procedure went incredibly well. Stuart was great at keeping me posted about what was going on. He also took quite a few icky pictures of parts of my body that I'm not supposed to ever see. As he was taking pictures of the doctors sewing me back together, our doctor asked, "Hey, is that the new Nikon D90?" Well, that was it. Male bonding began as the two of them got into a full discussion of the enhancements of the D90 over the D80 and the D70. Of course, the doctor assisting with the procedure had to chime in on things too since he has the D80. All of this is taking place while I'm being stitched up. I couldn't help but laugh because I had specifically asked Stuart not to talk about camera stuff in the operating room but who knew that our doctors would be conspiring against me on that plan. It was all very weird. Of course, I had to interrupt at one point and ask Stuart to please check to see if there were some things happening with the baby that he should be taking pictures of!

One proud Daddy!







Of course, the proud Daddy got to take care of Rachel's first diaper change! He talked so sweet to her the whole time and was very gentle with her. While he has changed hundreds of Nicholas' diapers in the past, this was his first time to ever change a girl's diaper.



NICHOLAS LOVES HIS LITTLE SISTER

Nicholas is so proud to be a big brother! He couldn't wait to meet his little sister for the first time.







Each time Nicholas was in the hospital room, he couldn't help but run over to Rachel from time to time to check on her and talk to her. He was especially excited the first time he got to hold his little sister in his arms.





When he wasn't playing with Rachel, Nicholas also enjoyed climbing up into the hospital bed with me and going for a ride to see how high up the bed would go!



Although I was in the hospital for several days I didn't find much quiet time for myself. I was able to get online one time during my stay to check email and post the first pictures of Rachel on the blog.



Mostly I just spent my time enjoying our new little baby girl and thanking God for the many blessings in our lives.