Life By The River: Welcome to the world...Ellery Jade!


I will never forget the JOY of having James place our daughter on my chest.

On the morning of Wednesday January 18th, I looked down at my belly and told the little one in there that I was ready, and to "come whenever you want." It was one week from my due date, but it's so hard not to be anxious to meet the little life inside of you. Plus my sciatic nerve pain had gotten so bad that I could barely walk at night.
I guess that was the message our little one was waiting for, because a few hours later my contractions started, few and far between, but I knew something was happening.

By late afternoon it was clear I was at

least in "early labor." My dear friend Carrie

came over to check in. By the time she

got there I was focusing and breathing

pretty hard with each contraction.

We got our bags together pretty quick.

We were really excited that Leora was the on-call midwife. She happens to be our neighbor and we had been hoping she'd be the one to deliver our baby.

I labored at Sutter Maternity from 8pm-12am, and at 12:16 AM on January 19th, our little ELLERY JADE was born.

We didn't know the gender of our baby ahead of time, so it was amazing, after 9 long months of wondering, to hear James tell me that we have a DAUGHTER!

Ellery came out healthy and ready to go! She cried the moment she was out, and she nursed on and off all night, like she'd been doing it her whole life ;)