Our Newest Addition

Here she is...our newest and best addition to the family! Berkeley Sinclaire was born on November 2, 2005 at 10:55 am. She weighed 5lbs 13 oz and was 19 inches long. She is still a tiny little peanut...at her 9 month check up she only weighed 15 lbs 3 oz. She may be tiny, but she is quite the spitfire. It is so fascinating to me how their little personalities shine through from the moment they enter the world. Berkeley seems to want everything on her own terms and that is obvious just from her birth. She decided to join the family 4 weeks early. My water broke at 9:55 pm watching "The Office" on November 1st. I thought I had laughed so hard I peed my pants, but I remembered a friend telling me that she thought she had peed her pants, but her water had broken and the same thing happened to me. I didn't think it could possibly be the real thing since I had another month to prepare, but Berkeley thought otherwise. We waited until about 2:15 am to go to the hospital and I was dilated to a 3. I waited until I was between 4-5 centimeters before I got that heavenly epidural. All I have to say is God Bless the doctor who invented that!!! My labor really wasn't that long for a first time mom...only 13 hours. I remember telling my sister when it was over that it is totally 'doable'. I'm sure I would have felt differently had I not had the epidural. Anyway, back to Berkeley's "little" personality. So she decided to come a month early, but when it was time to push the nurse told me it looked like I would only have to push for 20 minutes or so. I thought "No problem, this is a breeze." Well, an hour later she still wasn't coming out and I was exhausted from pushing. I didn't think I could do it, but I was completely determined not to have a c-section. I had told my doctor I didn't want an epsiotomy either, but she just wasn't coming out. My doctor tried using the suction 3 times with no luck and apparantly the rule is they are only supposed to try the suction 3 times and if that doesn't work they use the tongs as a last resort. She ended up calling the "tong specialist" in and he ended up cutting me all the way and using the suction one more time with success! I was so happy not to have had a c-section I didn't even care that my 'undercarriage' was sore for the next couple months. Anyway, I just think it is amusing that Berkeley wanted to come into the world so early and then at the last minute changed her mind and refused to come out. I have a feeling she is going to keep us on our toes for the next 20 years or so!
These are some pictures we had taken when she was 3 weeks old. Looking back on them makes me laugh because we were so exhausted and so clueless, especially when it came to newborns. Thomas had just bought a beautiful new white shirt and within the first 10 minutes of our session she had peed and pooped on him and then to top it all off threw up all over him. I was almost in tears because it was not going as I had planned and everyone who knows me knows how I like to plan and be prepared. Little did I know that virtually nothing goes as planned when you have a newborn baby. Anyway, we muddled through it and managed to get a few great pictures.