Welcome Pandora!

You may have guessed from my absence ~ our little one arrived a bit early! Little Pandora was born Wednesday the 8th, only a week early & with no complications. We are all home & doing well! (Today is my due date, haha)

I just got my camera cord back so here is a grainy iPad shot for now ~



The labor definitely took us by surprise, lasting only 3 hours total! For the first 2 hours my contractions were completely irregular (2 minute apart, 8 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.), and would sometimes pause if I changed positions ~ all the signs that it was 'false labor'. Once we hit about 2 hours they were so intense that we decided to go to the hospital anyway, throwing things in our bag & rushing out the door with our toddler. The contractions were about 2.5 minutes apart the whole 20 minute drive there and I was screaming my head off in the car!

And we barely made it there in time! They rushed us back to a delivery room & were telling me not to push yet, we were waiting on their doctor to get ready. No time for an epidural, or for a friend to take Orson ~ the poor guy had to sit in the room through the whole thing! (Luckily he doesn't seem traumatized) The baby was born within about 30 minutes of our arrival at the hospital ~ it was quite the crazy, surreal night!

It has been hectic juggling two little ones, especially in my sore state, but *thank goodness* I've got Justin's mom here this week to help. Justin took about 3 days off but headed back to work Tuesday to finish off the end of the school year. (I'll have him for the whole summer, but meanwhile I've got to get through next week on my own.) When we got back home I spent a few days finishing up my last bit of work & am really enjoying the fact that today I am free!! And feeling pretty good ~ I can finally start knocking out a few of those neglected chores & my overwhelming to-do list. (Naturally the toddler just woke up from a super short nap...)