Jane Abigail Alexander

She's finally here! It seems like I have been pregnant forever and I have to say that there is no better feeling than to have her out of my body and into our home. I had an appointment with my midwife on Tuesday and she gave me the very discouraging, "well I think you have another week". I started having contractions however right after my appointment and throughout the day but nothing real consistent until early Wednesday morning. After about 5 hours of pretty hard labor Jane was born at 10:37am, Wednesday, March 9th, weighing 9 lbs. 8oz. and is 21 in. long. Right as she was born and was placed on my stomach we could tell she was a big girl but I would never have guessed I could have a baby that big :). It did explain why labor was a little harder than any of us had anticipated. She had a hard time coming down under my pubic bone which delayed her birth by a couple of hours. Scott was able to "catch" her and the whole birth at home thing was such a special experience. My midwife, Liz, and her assistant, Janae, were excellent and made me feel at ease even when things got a little hard. They knew just what to do and how to make my contractions more comfortable for me, well, as comfortable as a contraction can be :). I loved being able to do my own thing without the chaos of the hospital. I'm not sure if I will put it in this blog or not but I will definetly be writing down my experience as soon as I can find the words to describe it. Having a piece of heaven enter not just your family but enter your home is amazing.

Jane is gorgeous though, beautiful dark skin, long black eyelashes and a perfect round face. Pictures never do newborns justice, I don't think, so its hard to see just how cute she really is.





The kids are loving her and fighting over her already, ("it's my turn to hold her"), Scott can't keep his eyes off of her and I am filled with love for this sweet girl I waited so long for so I'm thinking there will not be a shortage of love and attention for her at our house.

Scott and I had talked about the name Jane when I was pregnant with Ean. For the last few years I just knew that we had a Jane waiting to come. Knowing what a blessing from our Heavenly Father she is, Jane, meaning "God is gracious" just felt like the perfect name for her. Abigail is a name chosen by Scott. We have been discussing middle names for a long time and about a month ago Scott came home with the name Abigail having been on his mind all day. I wasn't sold on it so we have kept looking but the other night we had narrowed it down to 3 names we liked, looked up their meanings and decided to wait and see what came to us when she was born. When she was born I told Scott to pick and he didn't hesitate a second. So, Abigail, meaning "joy of a father", is just too perfect isn't it?