~NATALIE ROWAN IS HERE~

Natalie made her arrival on May 15th at 3:38 in the morning. She weighed 8 lbs and 1 oz, she was 21.5 inches.

My labor and delivery was fast and easy! I was in labor for 5 hours, and only had to push for 8 minutes!! The 8 minutes would have been less if only the doctors were ready... when they told me I was ready to push I started, then they told me to stop because they had to get ready (put on their "baby catching" gear)... I guess they didn't realize how fast she was going to come.

She is in perfect health and beautiful!!

With any baby, there is always something special that makes them unique, and its no different with our little Natalie... She has a couple stork bites, also called angel kisses... And as you can guess, we are choosing to call them angel kisses. We know Landon gave his little sister kisses before sending her to us.

She also has a little skin tag on her labia, I was freaking out because I thought they were going to have to remove it, and as anyone can imagine, that would be painful. I was relieved when the doctors told us its perfectly normal and as she grows, it will work its was into her body.

Now before I tell you this next part, I want to say again that she is HEALTHY! But we did have a little scare... As we were leaving the delivery room to go to the recovery room the nurse asked us if anyone had talked to us about the cyst found on one of her ventricles in her brain... she continued to tell us that's a soft marker for Trisomy 13! When we started to ask questions she had NO answers for us except it was found on one of my prenatal ultrasounds, she told us the pediatrician would be in to see us and could tell us more. HOURS LATER... the pediatrician came in, and of course we started asking questions. They had nothing in the charts about the information she was telling us. There were some issues from the prenatal ultrasounds but they were common and fixed themselves. They told us the nurse should not have even said anything. But just to put our minds at ease we requested a chromosome blood test to be sure. But, we know she is a healthy little girl, and the test results will show us that. They take 2 weeks.

They had to take her blood as they do with all newborns, but Natalie got poked a little too many times!! The first time they took her blood they dropped the vial, then they forgot to draw blood for the chromosome test, and so on and so on. Well when we were changing her outfit we were looking at all the places they stuck her with a needle. Both her hands were stuck about 3 times each and one is very bruised and swollen, her arm was used also for taking blood, her little foot was poked, and then of course her legs were poked for her shots. It tough being a newborn!!

We are now home and enjoying every moment with our daughter!

~We have been blessed with another perfect baby~

Labor is hard work for Daddies!

...but easy for Mommies!
Seeing Natalie for the first time!
Daddy cutting the cord...

Holding onto Daddy

Being weighed

8 lbs 1 oz

Daddy handing Natalie to Mommy

First family picture

Mommy and Natalie

Meeting Grandma Carla

Natalie in her first outfit

Natalie and Mommy

Daddy is so sleepy!

Close up!

Meeting Grandma Mima

Meeting Grandpa Jim

Natalie, Daddy and Grandma Mima

Daddy giving Natalie a bottle

Beautiful!!

Perfect!!

Checking out whats going on...

Natalie and Mommy...

Natalie and Daddy

Loving her first experience with her pacifier...

The nice nurse snuck it to us, they are not suppose to give us pacifiers.

Natalie was NOT going to let it go...

Getting dressed to go home!

Proud Daddy!

Daddy's Girl!!

All ready in her car seat

...on the elevator...

Grandma Mima got sick... can't risk Natalie catching it...

...in the car...

We are home!!

Natalie, Mommy and Daddy

In Daddy's arms...

Natalie with Grandma and Grandpa Smith

In Mommy's arms...

In her bouncer for the first time...

In her swing for the first time...