Welcome, Ella!

She's finally here. After teasing me for the past few weeks our precious baby girl finally arrived on Wednesday morning. Ella Catherine Evans was born at 6:33am on April 28th, weighing 7 lbs. 11 oz. and measuring 20 inches long. She is the picture of perfection. I just can't get over how much she looks like Clara and Elizabeth when they were newborns.

I'm so thankful that God answered my prayers for strength. Seems to me the more times you go through labour the better prepared you should be, but I was finding that knowing what lay ahead just made me not want to go through that pain again! Well, my fears were shortlived. I woke up at 4:28 on Wednesday morning to go to the bathroom and felt crampy getting back into bed. A few minutes later I was up to the bathroom again and had the first real contraction. They kept coming just a few minutes apart so by 5am we were on the road to the hospital. We got to labour and delivery around 5:30 and I had dilated to 6 cm so it was the real deal. They woke up Dr. MacDonald and he broke my water. A few contractions later she was out in one push. I was so relieved!

Ella and I have spent the past few days getting to know each other in the hospital and just got home today. So far she is light years ahead of her older sisters in the breastfeeding department. I hope that continues to go well. I just don't know if I have the "umph" in me for another battle like we had the last two times with nursing. I'm trying to leave it in God's hands and trust that He knows what I can handle.

Clara and Elizabeth are most thrilled with their baby sister. Clara is absolutely enchanted with her. She can't stop kissing her and gazing at her. She keeps commenting on how tiny her toes are, how cute she is, whether she's sleeping or waking up. She is keeping a very close eye on her. She's also very intrigued with everything baby...from how I change her diaper to how I feed her. Today she was watching me nurse Ella and she asked if the other side was juice. How cute! It was all I could do to contain my amusement. I told her babies just need milk and Ella will have juice in a sippy cup when she gets older.

Elizabeth likes to look at baby Ella too, but she is not quite as taken with her. I'm a little worried she may get jealous of all my care and attention for Ella in the next while. Hopefully we will all adjust smoothly. Seeing Elizabeth next to a newborn is reminding me how fast she has grown into the little girl she is. She is far from a baby now.

Well, I better sign off and relax a bit before Ella's next feed. We really don't have a lot of good pictures yet, but I'm sure there'll be more over the next few weeks.