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Hello, and welcome to our new blog! Hopefully this will help keep everyone up to date on what we're up to, especially our new little family member. This blog allows YOU, the reader, to leave comments, so please do so -- we would love to hear from you! By the way, you can obtain a high resolution photo by double clicking on any of the images. Hopefully, this isn't too much information, but we wanted to record some of the details of the birth here.

We're all doing great and just settling into a routine now that all the visitors have left. Lisa's Mom and Dad headed back to Chandler on Saturday and Jeff's Mom and sister, Teri, headed back to Detroit on Sunday afternoon. It was a huge help to have everyone here, and it really made it a festive homecoming and allowed us to catch up on some rest.

We will recap the week and include some photos.

The adventure began last Sunday, June 15. We were up to the 41 week time limit for the Birth Center and tried the dreaded castor oil and black and blue cohosh (homeopathic plant extracts used by Native Americans for centuries for inducing and regulating contractions).

Here's Lisa after downing the castor oil via root beer float (yum!) and encouraging the baby to come out and meet us. But alas she wasn't ready yet - always a little late like her mom.

On Monday, we did an ultrasound to measure amniotic fluid and a non stress test to check the baby's heart rate. Lisa had a large amount of fluid which indicated that the placenta was working well and the heart rate was healthy, so the advising physician gave us one more day to get things going and still deliver at the Birth Center. The monitor actually showed that Lisa was already having regular light contractions before the procedure.

On the way home from the hospital, we had a little traffic incident. I (Jeff) was turning (very cautiously!) when the light turned red, but couldn't go due to the oncoming traffic almost running the light and the other traffic coming out, so I had to slowly back up a couple of feet. The guy behind me was waving me back when a woman in a van ran into the back of him. Everyone was fine, but it was not the best timing -- the police called me for a statement while Lisa was laboring!


Here's Lisa laboring at home, stepping up and down on our fireplace hearth (since we have no stairs), in between walking laps around the house as it was 111 degrees outside. (By the way, this is the last you'll see of this shirt, since Lisa spilled a hot candle on her belly as we were rushing to get out the door!)

The baby was posterior ('sunny side up') which means that her back was facing Lisa's back, causing back pain during contractions. Still, Lisa was stoic throughout the first stage of labor and even told the incredulous midwife in transition and at nearly 10 cm dilation that 'this isn't that bad!'.

I guess that jinxed it though! Lisa's water broke right after that (while Jeff was on the phone with Lisa's Mom!) and we could see the top of the head soon after. However, it took a lot of effort and over 3-1/2 hours for the baby to rotate and finally greet us. The baby was so strong though and her heart rate never dipped below 130 (otherwise, I'm sure we would have ended up at the hospital). Jeff did the check and announced that it was a girl. Neither of us were surprised as our initial intuitions were that it was a girl. What was suprising was her size though as everyone commented on how big she was. Our long awaited baby, Iris Sophia, arrived on June 17, 2008 at 7:54 a.m. MST weighing in at 10.0 lbs (!!) and 20 inches long with eyes wide open and alert with a healthy appetite after a natural childbirth. Jeff was an amazing coach and even cut the umbilical cord.

For those who don't know Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, also a horticultural flower and optical component (thus our perfect little blending of DNA) and Sophia means wisdom because what else would you expect!

The experience was truly awesome and we feel so fortunate that the stars aligned at the thirteenth hour to allow us the peaceful birthcenter birth with a healthy baby and mom that we had hoped for. We were the only people at the birth center and had the full attention of two midwives and a nurse all night. When Iris hadn't arrived by the 7:00 am shift change we had an additional midwife and nurse -no one wanted to go, so we had a full support team of amazing women for the final minutes.

Most of the midwives had estimated around 8 lbs except for one who said 8.5 to 9.0 lbs on Monday. Later, she told us that she actually thought she would be 9.5 lbs, but didn't want to scare us!

Below, are the three of us immediately after the birth and Iris a little while later (on my lap). I missed out on a few prime photo opportunities due to forgetting the camera, so the newborn photos are from Lisa's Dad's camera.

















The first night was pretty typical with Iris nursing pretty much every other hour. Since then, she has been a good sleeper, usually sleeping in 3 or 4 hour blocks.

Lisa is shown bonding with Iris the next day.













Our first visitors were were Iris' proud grandparents, Chuck and Linda. They arrived at around 3:30 a.m. and were stuck in the waiting room while Iris delayed her debut -- they finally got a better close up look at our house on Tuesday evening.

















Our dog, Jasmine, trying to figure out what is going on?!












Below is Iris' first bathtime:































I picked up my Mom and Teri at the airport on Wednesday evening, took them by the hotel, and then brought them over to see the baby. Here's a few photos of Grandma H. and Aunt Teri -- it was so nice to see them and the thrilled looks on their faces.




















































Uber-fashionable madras dress from Aunt Teri (she'll have to grow into it a little).














Here was a rare chance for me to hold Iris with all the excited vistors around.












Chuck and Linda headed back home on Saturday after helping out a lot with cleaning and picking up take out and buying us a bunch of great girly clothes (since we didn't know the sex until she came out).





























On Saturday night, Iris had her first trip out when we took Mom and Teri out to La Fuente and had a great Mexican meal. The restaurant was really loud, and we had a mariachi band playing two feet from where Iris was sleeping (thankfully only the guitarists not the trumpet) -- she didn't even flinch and just slept through it! When the guitar player saw her, he apologized and got the band to move away, but it wasn't bothering her! It was really fun and nice to get out with the baby.

Iris enjoying the mariachi band when she was four days old!

Hanging out at Lodge on the Desert afterwards.

Sadly, Mom and Teri had to head out on Sunday, so we saw them off. They had scheduled their trip well ahead, so it really worked out well for them to be here the day after we got home with Iris. They were a great help, too, and it meant so much to us that they came all the way out. Note - Grandma H's joyous expression never faded from the first minute she saw Iris to the day she left.























More cute pictures of Iris (we're biased, I know):






















































Michael, a.k.a., Uncle Kibo, had the honor of being our first friend to visit, followed by Lisa's boss, Kevin, on Monday morning and Elizabeth and Mike on Monday evening.
























The tired, but proud and happy, parents: