She's Here!

As most of you know our little Elizabeth was born on Oct 25th. Here is the email I sent out to people and a few pics!

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Our little Ellie (Elizabeth Laury LaBriola) has finally made her big entrance into this world. She was born at 2:37am on Oct 25th weighing 7lb 1oz, 20in long. We had many twists and turns during the labor, but God brought us through!
We were originally planning on giving birth in a birth center with a mid-wife and an all natural labor. It seems things weren't meant to go that way! Around 2:00am on Oct 24th Katie's water broke which started the clock on when Ellie needed to be born safely. Around 8:00am we went to the birth center and Katie was not progressing. We went home, went for a walk & tried to get things going but to no avail, she was having no contractions. Around 2:00pm after talking with the Mid-Wife and her chats with the doctor who oversees the birth center it was best for her to be induced at the hospital. We went in around 3:30pm started Petocin to induce around 5:00pm. Labor started almost right away and being strapped to the bed, she needed to get an epidural around 7:00pm. Around 2:00am she was ready to push and after a few pushes the doctor saw that the baby's heart rate was dropping at every contraction (late deceleration) and decided it was not safe to proceed. He said C-Section was the safest way to go.

Katie was really strong, calm & collected through the whole labor, our minds were alert and hopeful and aware of Gods presence the entire time. And for those of you who know about my queasiness & fainting with medical things (for an example, I passed out when I watched my dog get a shot! ;) ), I was there for every intimate detail of the labor from the start to epidural, to pushing, to sitting in the operating room for the c-section without feeling queasy at all! - truly a miracle, so thanks for those who prayed, they were answered.
It was hard to go to the opposite extreme, but we have an extremely healthy, beautiful baby girl and Katie is healing well. The recovery and starting to care for the baby can be overwhelming at times for Katie, but overall she is in good spirits and we are feeling overwhelmed with joy at being new parents! Sometimes we cant help but smile so big & cry when we hold her! ;)
Thanks for being part of our lives! Here are some pictures of her!
- Steve (& Katie)