Of course, some of you have known this for two weeks and have been anxiously awaiting the pictures. Here they are, along with the story behind her birth.
Jisu almost never was. After four children we decided that we were through. The appropriate steps were taken, but about a week before the scheduled "steps" were actually taken, we became a bit suspicious that somebody slipped in under the wire. We didn't discuss it with the M.D., though, because he'd have encouraged that we "wait until the youngest baby is a year old" to go through with the surgery! Well, that's what caused this baby, so we waited until everything was done before getting a checkup to confirm the pregnancy.
Jiwon was beginning to show by the time she went in to see if she was pregnant. The Doctor said she was.
Jiwon went into labor at 12:52 this morning, so I got the other 4 kids up and into the van. We got everything we needed to get to the hospital except my wallet. By the time I had the kids loaded up 10 minutes or so had passed and we knew time was of the essence. We were expecting about an hour and 15 minutes labor. Oops! We were off by about 15 minutes.
We took the kids to my folks' who were waiting at the door (thank God for cell phones) to accept my precious treasures (even if being awakened at 1 a.m. made my little treasures a bit less treasure-ish). We raced to the hospital because we had now used up a precious 20 minutes of our anticipated 75-90. We were moving down Ronald Reagan Blvd. at a clip I would never attempt at, say, 4:00 on Friday afternoon.
Long story, short: we only had 59 minutes of labor. Midwife didn't make it in time, so the on-call doc yanked her ou..., um, I mean, delivered her.
Jisu (pronounced: Gee, Sue!) Orva Stanfield was born at 1:51 a.m. at Emory Eastside in Snellville. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 1.4 oz. and is 19 and three-quarter inches long. She has a full head of thick black hair, just like her sisters and 25 minutes after she came out, she ate for the first time. She lasted just over 50 minutes eating, so I don't foresee any weight-gain issues.
Mother and Daughter are looking and feeling well, although I'd say that Orva is feeling a bit better than her mother at this point. There were no complications and they are expected to arrive home sometime tomorrow.
Just in case you are wondering: for her Anglo name, I really wanted a strong Welsh name to match our Welsh last name. Then I came across Orva, which is Welsh, and immediately thought of "Orval", my grandfather, deciding I wanted to use it. Then I looked at the meaning and I fell in love with the name, it means "brave friend". So, in honor of my grandfather, Orval Stanfield, whom she will not meet until we all sing together in the sweet by and by, her middle name is Orva.
