> In case you haven't heard yet wintermute and I welcomed our daughter into the world on December 14th. Her name is Isabella Grace and she weighed in at 7 lbs, 7 oz. and was 21 inches long.
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> I was due on January 9th, but when I left work for a routine appointment with the doctor on the 12th of this month I found out that my case of swelling wasn't as "normal" as I thought. It was severe -- I'd gained 30 pounds since the last visit 2 weeks ago!! And my blood pressure was high as well. They told me that I had the symptoms of Pre-eclampsia and needed to go straight to the hospital. Of course it scared me half to death and I'm sure I didn't drive well, but I made it to the hospital unscathed and got signed in right away.
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> Long story short, they scheduled me for a C-section on Thursday and at 11:36 a.m. Isabella was welcomed into the world.
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> The baby is doing really well. She had low blood sugar at first, but that was the only thing that was "wrong" considering she was nearly 4 weeks early. We're very lucky and blessed for that.
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> I'm healing well enough, having now had the staples removed this past Thursday. And as of today I've lost 58 pounds (most of that was the swelling I had). It was really insane and looking back on it I'm lucky I had that doctor's appointment scheduled for that day. Any longer and I was putting myself (and the baby) in serious danger of a stroke or worse.
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> We're adjusting to life with a baby now. It's amazing to see what has changed verses what has stayed the same. Mostly things just take a lot longer to do and of course there's the whole lack of sleep thing. But it's worth it, of course. No complaints here. :-)
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> And thankfully my family stepped up and helped us finish the Christmas shopping that we were going to do the week I gave birth. Merry Christmas to you all!!!

Awwwww, that really takes me back. Our baby will be 50 in April.

I'm sure Isabella Grace is lucky in a lot of ways, but unless she would want to share a birthday with Richard Nixon, it was good that she came early.

Just wait until you decide to go somewhere for more that a few minutes. One tiny baby can totally overload a car. The days when you tossed a suitcase in the trunk and took off are over. You'll see.
Howard