Gracie Olivia Long

Sweet baby.

Wendy took this amazing shot....
smiling AND with her eyes open!

Sadie gets a look at her baby sister.

Only a few minutes old here.

Me with my two girls.

Chilling with dad.

Asleep in my arms.

Bonding with dad on day 2.

Gracie Olivia Long was born on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009 at 7:31 p.m. at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. Her stats: 7 pounds, 6 ounces and 20 inches tall. She is just perfect, very healthy and loud! We were finally able to bring Gracie home on Thursday afternoon. She's so sweet and precious.

We arrived at the hospital at 2:15 p.m. on Sept. 22 for a scheduled induction. My doctor broke my water at 2:54 and the fun began! I got an epidural at around 5 p.m., but I was still feeling the contractions. So weird! I felt NOTHING with Sadie. And then I REALLY started feeling them. I didn't understand what was going on. Epidural!!!! Does that mean nothing? The anesthesiologist came back around and tried to figure out what was going on. He turned up the volume, but it didn't really matter. I was fully dilated and ready to have this baby! I started pushing and my doctor told me to stop. They needed time to get the room ready. Four pushes and she was born. It lasted mere minutes. And there she was, so beautiful.

Our hospital stay seemed long. I felt great after about 24 hours, but I'm glad we stayed the full two nights. It's amazing how much I have forgotten about newborns since Sadie was one. Gracie also had to have a bit of surgery before we left. She had an extremely short frenulum, the membrane that attaches the tongue to the floor of the mouth. Since this could interfere with breastfeeding and cause speech problems later, we decided to go ahead with the procedure. It was really simple and she seems to be healing and feeling just fine.

We're glad to be home with our two beautiful girls.