blissfullykruse: It's a GIRL!!!

I know, I know...Claire came into the world almost a week ago (hard to believe!) and I still havn't blogged about her grand entrance!! So last Tuesday, I had my 40 week appointment in the morning, and much to my disappointment, still to progress- I was only dilated to 1cm, so Dr. Garrett and I scheduled an induction for Saturday, the 28th...well apparentally, Claire was not a fan of the induction idea! I started having contractions that afternoon and by about 10pm, I knew this was the real deal! We headed to the hospital around midnight and I was 2cm when I got there...so I decided to try and hold off on the epidural until I was more fully dilated, which turned into 8 hours of contractions that were 2 minutes apart. Finally around 8am, I got my epidural and within a couple hours, dilated to 6cm. Then around 2pm, much to all of our surprise (and immediately after an epidrual "booster" because my right side wasn't staying numb), I started feeling pressure and was fully dilated and ready to push...AHHHH!! Since I had just received so much medicine and apparentally I have a protruding tailbone that she was having a hard time getting past, the pushing didn't go so well for about an hour....3 1/2 hours worth of pushing later, we hesitantly decided to try to use the vacuum to try and get her out, and it worked!! Within two contractions and now 6:00pm, Claire Elizabeth Kruse was here! We were SHOCKED...for some reason, Spencer and I had both just pictured a boy so we were elated to find out tthat we had a little girl to wrap around our fingers! It was about a half an hour before I could hold her in my arms as she had meconium in her amniotic fluid, so NICU had to check her out before I was able to snuggle her. Holding that perfect little body in my arms for the first time was unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's hard to imagine until you've experienced it, loving this little person so much that your heart wants to explode....she's a doll, she's truly beautiful, she's hilarious and she's ours! I can't wait to watch her grow up and share it all with the people we love and who love her! Now for the hospital pics....I will post more from the last few days in a new post.