So what do we need to know about our little wonderful baby girl? I think we should start with the FAQs:
Born October 11th, 2001 (a binary birthday 100101)
She was born at 4:56pm in room 356 at South Lake Regional Health Facility.
Born a perfect 6lbs 15ozs, and she left the hospital around 6:15pm the next day... a little over 25 hours old.
On October 13th we took her to the Doctor, and she was a bouncing 6lbs 12ozs, only to gain a whopping 8ozs in the following 3 days!!!
She is perfect with long fingers (consensus is a piano player ;o), a healthy appetite and she only cries when there is something we can do for her... none of that pointless crying that you just can't diagnose or fix.
She sleeps very well, and is bright eyed and alert when she's awake. Unfortunately she thinks the best time for sleep is between 4am and 11am, but the time goes back an hour this weekend and her mommy is working hard to get that scheduled shifted back a few hours to work into actual night!

What else can I tell you... let's talk about the labor :o)

We arrived at the hospital to have Cheryl induced at 7:30 on Thursday the 11th of October (2 weeks ago today!) and went into our room and got all set-up. We got the TV hooked up (can you believe hospitals changed $15/day for a friggin TV), and the phone (another couple a bucks): Our Doctor, Karen Tanaka came in and broke Cheryl's water around 8:15am. Contractions started immediately and I went with the only sane recommendation... EPIDURAL. Cheryl thought she was tough, she thought she didn't need drugs...
WRONG!!!!
Well, 4 short hours of excruciating back labor later, she had tired the massaging hands of her mother and myself... and she crumbled under the pain and asked for the epidural
Penalty = 4 hours of pain and an additional 1 hour wait from when the pain simply became intolerable.
So the Doctor comes to give her the good drugs, and poor Cheryl's doubled over in pain - such that she had assumed the closest to a fetal position a full term expectant mother can... she had almost completely given up on finding a pain free position of comfort, it was equally horrible lying, standing, sitting, birthing ball - whatever.
Sandy and Judy left the room while her epidural was administered, and I stayed to keep her calm. As the needle went in, she had a big contraction hit - but the pain had been so much for so long she just lay motionless like a good little patient. The whole ordeal took about 10 minutes, when Sandy and Judy returned Cheryl was comfortably on her back, a smile on her face and 2 words of advice...
EPIDURALS ROCK!!!
The rest was a no brainer, she and I had about a 3 hour nap, woke around 3:30 and at 4:00 she told our incredible (and also pregnant) nurse Irene, she felt like she wanted to push. So push she did, I coached in my typical quiet, understated manner (you know me :o) and Irene, Sandy, Judy, Amanda (our great neighbour) and the video camera watched pensively. Each push we saw a little more of our beautiful little baby's (sex unknown at this point) head.
Three pushes before the end Dr. Tanaka waltzes back in (she spent the day at her private practice) for the big finish. Our baby has crowned, then one big
PUUUUSSSSSHHHH
and out came her little head - the moment her head came out she turned and looked up at me with wide open eyes... I was so excited I turned and looked at Cheryl... then glanced back to see the rest of her slight frame come out of her warm little world into our loving and anxious arms. I cut the cord, and we took part in the Alberta Cord Blood program, the rest... days to come!!!