introducing my future fashionista.....

sorry for leaving you all in suspense, but it seems my husband is not only all thumbs when it comes to babies but to blog updating as well! But he has been pretty occupied this week spending time at hospital, at work, looking after the dog, dealing with the pesky builders and getting used to being a new dad so I'm sure you all forgive him.

Well, little Anna Mei Chan finally emerged into the outside world at 1.37am on Tuesday morning, weighing in at 3.62kg (nearly 8 pounds) and 51.2cm (20in). She seems to be changing appearance as each day passes and she loses that screwed up red face look that newborns get. Here she is on day 2:

She certainly was a stubborn little lady, because being 12 days late wasn't enough, she dragged my labour out to more than 14 hours! But I don't think she cares about that, judging by this cheeky look she gave us shortly after coming out:

I'll spare you the gory details because I'm sure many of you have been there done that, and if you haven't you really don't want to know until it's too late to back out! Suffice to say it was the most pain I've ever experienced, and I endured about 4 hours of very painful and frequent contractions that were too short to effectively dilate (only 3cm in that time) before breaking down in tears begging for an epidural. And post epidural? Well then I could manage a smile, and even read the paper while we waited, and waited, and waited to reach the magic 10cm dilation time:

I was extremely sad to have the epi turned off for the final phase (ie the pushing) - which took an hour and a half, and in the end required the vacuum to pull her out because her shoulders were stuck.

Now I'm happily at home, the dog is going beserk wagging his tail he's so happy, but he does look startled at every little noise that comes from her way! And in other good news the pesky builders have done more work this week than just about the entire project so far so we are only a few weeks off finishing now. It's almost as if they didn't believe that I was having a baby until it actually came out.....

And as for me? Well I know have a spongy round stomach and still look a few months pregnant, I have quiet a few stitches down there and my nipples are starting to feel well used already but I'm so happy it doesn't matter too much.