She's Here!

We are very please and proud to announce the arrival of Molly McKenzie Gaffney who was born at 4:06 p.m. on January 19th. Molly weighed in at 7 pounds, 6 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. She has blue eyes and quite a bit of blond hair.

Abby did absolutely wonderful throughout the whole day. We woke up in the morning and they came to check her and realized that just giving her the effacing medicine was enough to jump start labor so there was no need to actually induce. At about 7 a.m. the contractions were pretty close and she was already partly dilated. Abby's water had not broken yet, but they weren't to worried and went ahead and broke it around 7:30 a.m.

I sat around for a while while Abby's contractions got closer and more severe. That was probably the most trying period I've endured in a long time. It's very hard to see the woman you love going through one of the most painful things in all of the world and not being able to do anything about it. I quickly learned that Abby just wanted me to be quite and sit there. I wasn't even allowed to read, which made it tougher, but I have no cause to complain.

Abby and I had discussed doing an all natural birth with no epidural (I thought it was nuts to do it without one, but I'm the guy here so...), but we never cut off the idea of getting Abby something for the pain and I am very glad we didn't. Abby was a real trooper and has (as anyone who knows her could tell you) a very high pain tolerance. When she finally decided it was epidural time I knew that it must have been bad. The epidural was actually pretty interesting (from my point of view). I had to hold Abby's feet while the doctor did her magic. It took about 5 minutes to get it in and another couple of minutes for it to kick in. Once it did kick in Abby was stuck in bed for the rest of the time.

After they got Abby situated following the epidural the nurse came into check her and she was already 8 centimeters dilated and totally effaced. We knew then that it would only be a couple of hours until we got to see our baby girl!

After two hours the nurse came in and wanted to do some practice pushes. The nurse quickly realized Abby didn't need any practice and called Dr. Corbett to come on over (probably has something to do with all that gymnastic and body awareness). After 50 minutes of pushing out popped Molly McKenzie.

I was very impressed by how good Dr. Corbett was during and after the birthing. She had Molly Mac (that's what I like to call her) out, aspirated, let me cut the cord (quite the experience), and on Abby's tummy in about 20 to 30 seconds.

Molly came out with eyes wide open and arms swinging. She seemed to be very aware of the whole experience and her eyes were moving from side to side. She was crying of course, but it wasn't too bad. She seemed more shocked that they had gotten her out of there than scared. She really wanted to put up a fight, but Mom was this round. After spending a couple of minutes on Mom's tummy, the nurse took her over to get all cleaned up and checked out. I followed and took lots of pictures--some turned out and others didn't. Here are a few...

Once Molly was cleaned up, weighed, measured, and got her hat (yes, babies come with hats) I finally got to hold her. I have truly never been more happy.

And yes, Ashley was right that the Blue Moose shirt was a little tribute to our Moose since he wasn't allowed to come to the hospital--their rule, not ours. It would have been fun to see Moose in scrubs.

Now that Molly is here we are going to start a whole new chapter of our lives. It's going to be fun (not to mention tiring) and I can't wait for each and every day!