Meet Elliana

Heather and I are thrilled to introduce to you all our daughter, Elliana Lorraine. She was born on 11 May (Tues) at 9:58pm. She was 6 lbs 8 oz in weight and 20 in long in height, with (as you'll see) lots of brown, silky hair.

But, before we get to all of our Elliana pics, let's go through the lead up.

Here we are right before going to the hospital. We found out Monday at 2pm that we needed to go to the hospital that night at 8pm. We were expecting to go on Tuesday morning at the earliest, and maybe even on Friday. Needless to say, Monday afternoon was very rushed, but we still got in a great dinner at Sweetwater Tavern!

Here's my incredible wife on Monday night, getting ready for the big day.

Heather started a pitocin IV Tues morning at 8am. Right around 2pm, when she was feeling some of her strongest contractions, our nurse surprised Heather and gave her an orange icicle pop. She was in heaven! She waited until around 3pm or so to get an epidural, which was good because any longer and she wouldn't have been able to hold still long enough. By the way, we went to Reston Hospital, and every one of the nurses we had in labor and delivery were fantastic!

A little bit before 9pm, in the middle of a movie, Heather was feeling lots of discomfort, so much so that the nurse decided to check her earlier than she planned. Which was a good thing because our little girl was ready to come out! So our nurse got everything ready, she taught Heather and me how to push (I had to assist the nurse), and then Heather went to work.

As a quick aside, for those who have never seen a woman in the last stages of pregnancy, let me say that the movies and TV shows don't even come close to getting it right. It is amazingly hard, exhausting work and I have a much deeper appreciation for all mothers after this experience.

Heather did great at this point. Within 30 mins of pushing, out popped our little Elliana. And even though her face was initially a little swollen (with good reason), she was still adorable!

Our sweet pea with her Grandma Carr. It was such a blessing to have Christine there. She was a huge comforting presence to Heather in particular, but to me as well. And a fountain of knowledge, too.

It was incredible to see how much Elliana changed in the first two hours after birth. We were lucky to be able to keep her in our room for just over two hours before they took her up to the nursery to get all cleaned up and run all their tests, and she looked very different from when she was delivered to when she left.

Here she is all cleaned up.

Here is our first attempt at dressing up our little sweet pea. We had no idea that she would not fit into any of the 0-3 month clothing. Even the newborn clothes were loose on her. She is such a cute, teenie little thing!

After we got her dressed in something that fit (relatively speaking), she suddenly stopped looking all around her and just stared at Heather. It was very sweet!

The last day in the hospital, Heather had recovered remarkably well from a very, very rough 14 hours after delivery, and so some friend stopped by to say hi.

And here are some of our favorite pics of her.

Here's me with my little princess. I like this fatherhood thing. And even though I'm getting as little sleep as people warned I would get, the nights aren't as horrible as I thought they would be. I like being able to hold and snuggle with my baby girl in the calm and quiet of the night.

Her "Going Home" outfit, courtesy of Grandma Carr.

Elliana praying that her parents will have a clue on how to take care of her (which we are trying our best to figure out).

Finally leaving the hospital and heading home for good!