Welcome to the world, Dharia Lou!

She's here!

Dharia Lou Sharp was born Wednesday, July 30th at 12:15 pm. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 13 ounces and was 19 inches long.

Tuesday afternoon I took advantage of a gift certificate my brother and sister-in-law (Evan and Laura) got me for my birthday and got a nice spa pedicure and haircut. Afterwards, Colby picked me up to take me out on a date. We went to the new buffalo barbeque wings joint in town. After dinner when I went to the bathroom, I thought that maybe my water had broken, but I just wasn't sure...

You'd think that after two times through this, I'd learn. I guess I'm just not that quick.

Colby and I picked up Bres and went home. I woke up the next morning at about 8 am to contractions. We dropped Bres off at Grandma Sharp's house and went to the hospital. I kept thinking to myself, "This is so different than last time. I wonder if I'm really in labor..."

I was dilated to 5 cm by the time we got to the hospital. By the time Colby and I walked the hallways a few times and I took a nice jacuzzi tub bath, I was already at 9 cm and it was time to go!

A few short pushes (thank you Lord) was all it took and she was here! I looked down at her little purple body all covered with nasty junk and could only think two things: 1) She's beautiful (even with the cheesey gunk), and 2) How did she ever really fit in there?

I am proud to say that this was my second completely natural delivery without drugs or medications of any kind, which I feel merits some type of medal. :)

We had a whirlwind of great visitors at the hospital, but we were very relieved to go home today. Bres came and saw his new sister. He was not impressed. He gave her about 5 seconds of his time before moving on to other things. It was funny to me how even in the hospital with the new baby, he still managed to make himself the center of everyone's attention. He also managed to use the little remote on the side of my bed to call the nurse! Good thing he's cute...

Dharia looks just like Breslin did when he was a newborn, but her personality is significantly different. For example, while Bres refused to sleep in the bassinet at the hospital (this is not an exaggeration...he probably slept less than five hours total of the time we were there), Dharia sleeps all the time. I have trouble waking her up to eat! Even now, I'm just sitting here typing and looking at her, waiting for her to wake up and play. She's very calm and contented. Colby and I even managed to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep both nights we stayed at the hospital.

Going home...so tiny in the car seat!

We feel so blessed that God has given us such an amazing gift. We are excited to begin this new chapter of our lives as a family of four!

PS-One of my favorite parts of our whole hospital experience came on the day after Dharia was born. Colby was really cold in the room, so he had bundled himself up on the hospital bed under all the covers and was just snuggled up watching TV while I was cleaning some stuff up around the room. Just then, a nurse came in to take Dharia away for a hearing test. As soon as she walked in the door, she looked at Colby and said, "Well, this is something I've never seen before!" I got big kick out of it and had to take a picture. Colby did not find it as funny.

Stay tuned! This blog will soon be innundated with pictures of Dharia.