Our New Addition

We are so excited to finally share our new baby, Audrey Reagan, with the world. She arrived without much fanfare (a good thing) on Thursday, February 12th at 3:34pm. Audrey weighed 7 pounds 3 oz and is 19.75" long. She has a head full of dark brown hair and has deep blue eyes. Ava is really excited to have her baby sister here, but doesn't want to hold her because she's "too big" (aka too heavy). I think Ava expected her to be as light as her baby dolls.

Delivery went really well. She was due on February 7th, so our doctor scheduled an induction on the 12th. After a nice big breakfast at IHOP, Jim and I dropped off the dogs at the kennel and headed to the hospital for our 7:30am admission. At 9am they started the petocin (to start contractions). I got my epidural right at 2pm (thank God for anesthesiologists!) and at about 3:05 we were ready to go. Roughly 30 minutes later, there she was!

So "Audrey"... it wasn't on the final three name list, was it? Here's the story: Our final three included Emma, Leah, and Reagan. Every day we had a new favorite, but at the same time none ever came out and grabbed us as "the one." Exactly one week before Audrey was born, Jim came home and said "What do you think of Audrey?" (We love "A" names, by the way.) I said "I've mentioned Audrey at least a dozen times over the last nine months and you shot it down every time." Jim, of course, had no recollection of this. :) One of my best friends from college, Kristin, also named her daughter Audrey so this was my only hesitation. I ran the idea by her just to get her input, and of course she loves the name and was cool with us both having Audrey's even though it might make for confusing conversation - LOL. Woo hoo!

So Audrey it was... her middle name is Reagan. I've always loved Reagan, and of course I'm a big fan of the President, so that was a no brainer for me. This added with the fact she was born on Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday (another great conservative President I admire) made it extra special!

We came home on Saturday to a very excited big sister. Life has been very good thus far. Ava is excited to see her baby sister every day when she wakes up and again when she comes home from school. She runs to her, kisses her on the head, and says "I miss you baby sister." It just melts our hearts. We are the luckiest parents in the whole wide world!