SHE'S HERE!!!

After what to me seemed like a VERY long 9 month wait, I'm happy to announce that our little Sofia Sue has finally arrived! My new sweet girlie was born yesterday, October 15, 2012, at 1:06 p.m.  She weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and is 21 in long, and I, for one, am completely in love with this beautiful little lady already!

Sofia has lots of soft, curly dark hair, but almost no eyebrows.  She has the most heartbreaking squeaky high pitched cry that has the super sad quality of Kamila's, but with the volume of Elva Kalea's.  Her eyes are light right now...my mom and I are hoping that one of her grandchildren finally got green eyes like their grandma, but it's still a little early to tell.  Regardless of eye color, we're so very happy that she's here and healthy!

My labor with Sofia was different than any of my others.  With each of my other children, once my water broke, the baby/babies arrived within about 15 minutes to half an hour.  I assumed this one would be similar, but after my doctor broke my water around 8:45 a.m., my labor progressed very slowly and the nurse kept commenting about how "high" Sofia was.  In other words, the contractions were not making her progress down into the birth canal.  So, that was unfortunate.  Also, to add another layer of discomfort to the situation, my nurse had a nursing school student shadowing her...lucky me!  I love having people learn new skills by shoving their hand into my vagina. 

IT.IS.AWESOME. 
NOT.
Definitely NOT awesome. 

But, nursing student jokes aside, my actual certified nurse really WAS awesome.  I feel very fortunate to have had her because she was the one who got Sofia into position for delivery.  After about 3 1/2 hours of non-productive labor, my nurse checked me and said that she felt like Sofia was "sunny-side up," meaning that she was facing the wrong direction for delivery, which is why she remained so high up in my uterus and wasn't decending like she should have.  So, she had me lay on my side for what was literally like maybe 45 seconds, Sofia turned and dropped into position, and VOILA! a baby was born mere minutes later!  Happy day!

Another fun thing about Sofia's birth is that she was the first of my babies that they placed directly on my chest after she was born.  That was really fun.  My other ones were whisked away to be cleaned and weighed and measured before I had a chance to hold or see them, so I was grateful for the little bit of time I got to spend with Sofia before they got down to all of the technical stuff.  Thanks to my mom, I got some really good pictures of Sofia and me just after she was born:









So, there you have it, folks!  Peanut #5 is officially part of the Tukuafu family.  We love you sweet Sofia Sue!!