It's a girl!

Today we welcomed Esther Mae into the world!

Stats
Date/Time: Sunday, 16 Nov 2008, 5:59AM (EST)
Place: St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore, MD
Weight: 8 lb 8.8 oz
Length: 19.5 in
Hair: dark brown, and lots of it
Eyes: blue

Pics

She has dimples on both sides of her smile!

Look at all that hair

We think she looks remarkably like Caleb did

The Lowe family

How it all went down

As you can tell from the last post, we were expecting to wait a while. In fact on Wednesday Elisha wasn't as far along as she had been with Caleb at that point. The doctor basically said not to count the contractions that didn't make her stop in her tracks and take a breath.

So yesterday we went to the mall to return something and attempt to walk Elisha into labor (which had failed miserably with Caleb). Contractions started with lots of regularity but not much intensity. We got home and put Caleb to bed and Elisha started feeling somewhat queasy. We feared she was coming down with a stomach bug that Caleb had a couple of days ago. After going to bed, she woke up around midnight with full on stomach-bug symptoms. Then contractions started being more serious and a little closer together. The stomach bug stuff didn't let up and after about 2 hours, we thought we should probably call the doctor. She said to come on in to the hospital, so we called one of Elisha's coworkers who came over to stay with Caleb through the night. We got to the hospital about 3:30 and she was already about 75% of the way there! Things went smoothly but quickly - so quickly that the doctor we talked to didn't make it to the hospital before Esther was born!

Elisha didn't have any drugs (again) and everyone was amazed at how calmly she took it all (again). Esther was born less than 2 1/2 hours after we got there and after fewer than 10 min of pushing! My wife is a champ and a lot tougher than I.

One last thing: since Elisha was gestationally diabetic, they confiscated Esther within the first hour to check her blood sugar levels. We didn't see her again until almost 6 hours later. Everything looks great with her, including the blood sugar stuff, so we are just feeling really blessed.

Elisha's folks are here now and her mom will likely stay for a while to help out. Mine are coming the week of Thanksgiving and Elisha's brother and sister-in-law will come that week, too.

Thanks for all the prayers!